Election day:

Police to get tough against miscreants

Sarath Malalasekera

“We are strong and organised to face any situation during the general elections 2010 and post elections. If any person or persons attempted to create problems or disturb the peaceful elections they will be severely dealt with according to the law, said Inspector General of Police Mahinda Balasuriya yesterday afternoon addressing the media at the Police Headquarters.

According to a directive from Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake the Police have done an excellent job by removing 16,325 cut-outs, 6556 banners, 21,102 flags and 28,735 posters before the election day, the IGP said.

The IGP appealed to all the agents of candidates who are allowed to enter the counting centres to avoid taking their Mobile telephones into the centres. If any agent is found with the Mobile telephone, he will not be allowed to entre the Counting centres, the IGP said.

The Police election desk had received 298 complaints. Police have arrested 311 suspects and 206 suspects are to be arrested. Only one major incident reported, a murder, other complaints are not serious. No of complaints received by the Police during the general elections are very much less than the complaints received during the Presidential Elections. During the Presidential Elections police received 826 complaints, the IGP said.

The IGP emphasised that the Election Laws are valid till April 15.

To conduct fair and peaceful election the Police had deployed 58,700 police force for the elections to be held tomorrow. In addition to the Police force 19,500 personnel from the three forces, Army, Air Force, Navy and STF-Vice squad will also assist the police during the elections and the post election period.

Each candidate will be allowed to have their head office within 500 metres from the polling-booth, the IGP added.

The Police also will have 2584 mobile units to patrol during the day and night on election day with three policemen and two persons from the forces, in a single unit, in order to provide maximum security for the voters, the IGP said.

The Elections Commissioner had indicated to Police that if any major incident takes place in any of the polling booths, that he will cancell the election in that area, the IGP said.

Maximum security will provide for transporting ballot boxes to the 22 counting centres. Each candidate would permit one person to follow the vehicle carrying the ballot boxes to the counting centres, Senior DIG Navaratne said .

Crimes DIG Anura Senanayake, Police Media Spokesman Senior SP Priyasath Jayakody and Chief Inspector Rohan Gamage of the Police Media unit also participated at the conference.