Combing operation conducted with confidentiality

Aurangabad, Sept 27:

The city police launched a combing operation in the wee hours on Tuesday and arrested 14 activists from the city associated with Popular Front of India (PFI). The operation was conducted with complete confidentiality and even the operation team was given the information of the persons to be arrested in a closed envelop. Earlier, commissioner of police Dr Nikhil Gupta took a meeting of the senior officers at around 8 pm before initiating the operation. DCP Aparna Gitay, Ujwala Vankar, Deepak Girhe, ACP Vishal Dhume, Ashok Thorat, PI Avinash Aghav, Pramod Kathane, Gautam Patare and others were present during the meeting. Dr Gupta and the all the officers were alert for the entire night during the operation, the sources said.

National Investigation Agency provided information about 14 persons of the city associated to PFI. The city police launched a combing operation to nab them and in order to avert any untoward incident, additional police force was also kept reserved. The appointed team conducted the entire operation before the allotted time. Eight officers of Intelligence Bureau (IB) also participated. CP Dr Gupta with the senior officers made a micro planning of the operation. Inspectors of Begumpura, Kranti Chowk, City Chowk Cidco MIDC, Cidco and Jinsi, officers of NDPS, anti-liquor squad and teams of three police stations were also included in it. These teams were not given information of the operation but were given closed envelops about the directives of execution of the operation. These teams started the operation at around 2.30 am. The mobile phones of the officers in the teams were taken into custody.

The city police arrested 14 persons, of which one Syed Kalim Salimbhai Chote is said to be the state president of Social Democratic Party of India related to PFI while the remaining 13 are working at various posts in PFI, the sources said.