Thursday, September 15 2005 14:08 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Patna: Apprehending largescale violence by the proscribed ultra-left outfits during the coming Assembly poll, the Bihar Government has decided to take help of army helicopters to patrol the skies besides, embarking on an area domination exercise to check inter-state Naxalites movement.

Chief Secretary G S Kang told sources today (Sept 15, 2005) that the State Home Secretary H C Sirohi would be making a formal request to the Defence Ministry for sparing four helicopters to step up patrolling in the Naxal-hit areas during the poll.

The banned Communist Party of India (CPI) (Maoist) has given poll-boycott call. Sirohi said altogether 174 companies of central forces, each comprising of 72 to 74 personnel, would be deployed in the 61 assembly constituencies going to poll in the first phase on October 18.

We have demanded a total of 600 companies of central forces for deployment for the four-phase poll, besides guarding the strong rooms and assisting the police in maintaining law and order in view of the festivals of Hindus and Muslims, he said.

Director General of Police Ashish Ranjan Sinha said, area domination exercise+ was also being launched to effectively check the inter-state movement of the Naxalites.

Under the exercise, central forces in the Naxalites-infested areas would be deployed on the Bihar-Jharkhand borders and in the highly sensitive areas with a focus on smoking out Maoists from their strongholds.

According to some newspaper reports, unperturbed by the magistrate's warning, Lalu had delivered his speech in violation of the model code.

The Center has agreed to make available 150 companies of central reserve police force, which are expected to arrive here soon.

Meanwhile, smuggling of arms to poll-bound Bihar from neighboring Nepal has also posed a challenge before the administration.

Security forces have intensified vigil across the porous Indo-Nepal border, particularly in West Champaran district.

Intelligence inputs suggest that innocuous looking curd and milk containers are being used to smuggle firearms to disturb elections. An intense vigil by the police and SSB has been mounted along the porous border, SSB officials said. Pointing out that largescale smuggling of arms by banned CPI (Maoists) through Susta on the Indo-Nepal border is feared, they said SSB officials have seized contraband articles worth several lakhs of rupees in the past one-week in West Champaran.

All vehicles entering India through Gandak barrage at Valmiki Nagar are being thoroughly checked, sources said.

The maoists are collecting arms to spread violence during the polls.

On Saturday last, an arms dump of Naxalites was unearthed in the forests in valmiki tiger project area in which 44 dbbl guns, a rifle and huge quantity of ammunition were recovered.