Tight security arrangements were made to make the Yoga Day event successful: U'khand Police

Nearly 3000 security personnel were deployed in and around the Forest Research of Institute campus, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the main event on the fourth International Yoga Day today.

The prime minister lead 55,000 enthusiasts in performing asanas in the picturesque lawns of the British-era FRI campus in Uttarakhand's Dehradun.

According to Inspector General of Police Amit Sinha, "The FRI campus can accommodate only 35,000 people, but over 50,000 were issued online passes and still there was no chaos in evidence anywhere throughout the event."

Sixty-three CCTV cameras were installed at the venue to keep an eye on 60 gates through which people with passes were allowed entry.

 

Vehicular movement beyond Ballupur area, enroute to the FRI, was also under CCTV camera surveillance since late last night.

Routes were diverted to ensure uninterrupted movement of the prime minister's convoy and other VIPs to the venue.

"Though foolproof security arrangements had been made,there was some worry about the possibility of last minute chaos due to a crowd of young yoga enthusiasts expected at the venue but thankfully everything went off well," the Inspector General of Police told PTI.

The venue had been divided into 51 sectors each carrying 440 - 1800participants on an average depending on its capacity.

The online passes were bar coded so that the police hadthe database of every single participant at the event.

"People were over-enthusiastic about the event. So much so that we had to stop online registration within five days of starting it. We were flooded with applications. We received a total of 65,000 applications and we issued passes to 50,099, " the official said.

Many enthusiastic applicants were left disappointed as they could not get passes, he said.