Combing operations to avert Naxal infiltration

Chennai

The police on Sunday said personnel drawn from Special Task Force and Tamil Nadu police are keeping a strict vigil in the jungles bordering Karnataka and Kerala border. Cameras have been installed at about 30 strategic points in these areas to monitor the movements of the extremists and also strangers, police said.

Residents in the border areas have been asked to alert the department, in case of sighting strangers in their villages. There were unconfirmed reports that one person, reportedly a Naxalite, was taken into custody from a forest area in Kerala, bordering Tamil Nadu.

Combing operations have been stepped up following reports that a group of AK 47-wielding Maoists are to infiltrate in the State, after the exchange of fire between Police and extremists in Ambalappara in Kerala in the last week of November.

One dead, 15 others injured in mishap One person was killed and 15 others were injured on Sunday when the bus in which they were travelling overturned near Palladam in Tirupur district, while the driver was negotiating a curve, police said.

Police said the government bus was coming to the city, when the mishap occurred at Panapalayam. The injured have been admitted to the government and private hospitals there, they said.