Security was beefed up in Coimbatore on Saturday after the properties and cars owned by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Hindu Munnani functionaries were vandalised in the city by unidentified persons on Friday. Vandalism of property was also reported from Erode district. The violent incidents were in the backdrop of the arrest of Popular Front of India (PFI) functionaries in Coimbatore by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) as part of a nation-wide crackdown.
Nearly 1,700 police personnel from 11 districts including Salem, Trichy, Tirunelveli, Madurai, and Ramnad arrived in the district on the morning of September 24. Nearly 100 Special Task Force (STF) officers and 58 Tamil Nadu police commandos have also been deployed in the city.
On September 23 morning, miscreants hurled a Molotov cocktail at a shop located on the 100-feet Road in Coimbatore. The shop is owned by Mohan, BJP secretary to the Rathnapuri area. Broken pieces of a bottle and a wick were found in front of the shop's shutter. On Friday, four vehicles owned by two BJP functionaries and a Hindu Munnani worker in Pollachi were damaged.
In Tiruppur district, some unidentified persons threw stones at the residence of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) functionary at Jai Nagar. A furniture shop owned by a former BJP functionary in Erode also came under attack. According to the police, miscreants threw packets filled with petrol and diesel at the shop owned by a former BJP Youth Wing District secretary at Moolapalayam in Erode. The fire damaged a portion of the shop.
Anticipating the spread of violence around 4,000 police personnel have been deployed in Coimbatore district. Security at 11 existing checkposts of the city were beefed up. Another 28 checkpoints were also set up in Coimbatore to inspect the vehicles and nearly 45 police vehicles are on patrolling duty. As per a report in The Hindu, a total of nine special teams are on the lookout for the miscreants who were involved in the violence. Battalions of the Rapid Action Force and the police took out flag marches at Karumbukkadai and Gandhipuram.
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