Sources said Mayawati minced no words in warning the top brass that heads would roll if anything went amiss on or after judgment day.
All eyes are once again on the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court where a special three-judge bench is to pronounce the much-awaited judgment in the Ayodhya land title suit at 3.30pm on Thursday.
The Mayawati government beefed up security arrangements in Lucknow and Ayodhya. “We are taking every conceivable measure to ensure no one messes with the law and order in Uttar Pradesh,” Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh said.
Chief minister Mayawati, he informed, had convened a meeting of top officials earlier in the day. Sources said she minced no words in warning the top brass that heads would roll if anything went amiss on or after judgment day.
Her words seemed to have immediate effect. Within an hour, the area in and around the high court’s Lucknow bench had been taken over by men in uniform. Similar security measures were also made for the Allahabad bench of the court, sources said. The picture was no different in Ayodhya where the Rapid Action Force conducted a flag march soon after the apex court judgment on Tuesday.
Sources said the additional police and central paramilitary forces deployed in Ayodhya and Faizabad had not been withdrawn even after the Supreme Court had postponed the Allahabad high court’s order on Thursday last. If anything, reports reaching here said more companies of armed personnel were pressed into service by Tuesday evening.
“On an average, every fourth person in Ayodhya now is a man in uniform,” said a Faizabad-based journalist.
At the disputed site, security is unprecedented. Two helicopters are stationed in the area to keep an aerial vigil as long as there is light, sources said.
The entire 67-acre area surrounding the disputed site has been blanketed with armed securitymen. A top police officer described as “worrying” intelligence reports that some elements were planning to foment communal disturbances after the verdict, “regardless of which way it goes”. He said reserve forces have been sent to “sensitive” spots.
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