With surge in protests, cops on a mission to identify more venues

The intelligence section has already warned the city police that more such protests are likely against the state government and Centre and the existing venues will not be enough to accommodate all of them, forcing the protesters to gather at venues where such demonstrations are banned. 

Highly-placed sources in the city police said, “When the protesters turn to places where protests are banned, due to unavailability of space, it leads to a law and order situation.” 

“When people gather at venues like Marina, where protests are banned, police will be forced to act and that leads to unnecessary tension between the protesters and the police,” a senior police official elaborated. 

The present city Commissioner of Police A K Viswanathan has clearly told his colleagues that police should not have an iron hand approach to public protests and have instructed his officials to identify venues where public protests could be allowed. 

Based on this, the city IS inspectors have been asked to identify such areas in their jurisdiction and file a report. The intelligence inspectors have already started compiling a list of probable venues in their respective areas and the list will be submitted to the Police Commissioner, who would take a final call on allowing protests at these venues. 

 City police sources said that the inspectors have been asked to look in to all angles, like traffic movement viability, containment viability and the capacity of the venue to hold a good number of persons before recommending the place as an ideal venue for allowing protests. 

The city police had drawn criticism from activists after the police detained four activists under Goondas Act for conducting a protest on the Marina, which police claimed had turned violent.  Police sources said restricting protests to a few venues in the city has been a problem as police were forced to turn down applications seeking permission to conduct them. 

When contacted, Viswanathan said, “It is to give more options to those who seek permission to conduct protests. We want to provide more venues for people to hold peaceful protests.” Since, protests have been banned at many venues like Marina and police were short of options, he had asked the policemen to identify more places.