Security checks to begin by weekend

Security agencies will start conducting anti-sabotage checks and sealing each of the two dozen locations to be used during the Commonwealth Games beginning this weekend. HT reports.

Security agencies will start conducting anti-sabotage checks and sealing each of the two dozen locations to be used during the Commonwealth Games beginning this weekend. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting convened by Home Secretary G.K. Pillai on Tuesday.

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Anti-sabotage experts of security agencies are expected to begin with the Games Village this week, security officials said, pointing that they were a month behind their original schedule.

"As the construction of the venues aren't complete, we are a going to have to compress our checks," a security official said after the meeting.

"There are lots of small things that need to be sorted out. For instance, the wire mesh separating two enclosures in a location was so fine that spectators would not be able to really see anything," a police officer said.

All the Games venues should have been 'locked-down' by August, enabling security agencies to completely sanitise the complex and make it ready for the players and other ancillary officials to move in.

Over 1 lakh personnel will be deployed for the security of the Games. They will be assisted by eight Air Force and Border Security Force choppers.

Government officials said the Organising Committee had relented to deploying National Security Guard commandos in the stadium after security agencies insisted they should be at hand to deal with any crisis.