Special Cell men on poll duty

The Delhi Police’s special cell police on Saturday deployed its officers and men across voting booths to ensure incident-free elections. The special cell is trained to fight terror and organised crime 24x7, reports Abhishek Sharan.

The Delhi Police’s special cell police on Saturday deployed its officers and men across voting booths to ensure incident-free elections. The special cell is trained to fight terror and organised crime 24x7.

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“At a time like this, the special cell should have been spared from election-related work,” said a Union home ministry officer, who requested anonymity since he is not authorised to talk to the media.

When asked whether the police department had overburdened the anti-terror unit with election duties, assistant commissioner of police Rajan Bhagat responded in negative. “Delhi Police deployed 35,000 of its own men and officers, including the special cell, to ensure Saturday’s assembly elections passed off peacefully. Besides, we had deployed 18 companies of central para-military organisations and 18,000 home guard men on election duty.”

Bhagat added: “This time, we had to guard against terror and so the special cell was required.”

The efforts paid off. “The day passed off without any untoward incident,” said Bhagat.