A lone Delhi police constable, carrying a lathi and chasing two “heavily armed” gunmen who had opened fire on Taiwanese nationals outside Jama Masjid on Sunday morning perhaps summed up the security preparedness of the Delhi police and the Central security agencies for the Commonwealth Games.
For the past two months, Central security agencies and the Delhi police have been carrying out mock security drills at various critical installations in the national capital to check the preparedness of its forces in the wake of a terror strike. The media was told that all is well and Delhi police commissioner Y.S. Dadwal even showered praises on his force for the kind of preparations they were making.
However, no sooner did the time came for the forces to act in a real time environment that a serious blow was dealt to the image of the Games security and a lone Delhi police constable Pramod, armed with a baton, which he normally uses to deal with unruly crowds, found himself chasing two gunmen. He failed to arrest them.
Not only this, there was no police control room van in the vicinity of the area where the attack took place which could have alerted the next police post and possibly a barricade could have been erected and the assailants hunted down. And by the time security forces came to know about what had happened, the assailants had sneaked out of the area.
The police sources also revealed that there are no CCTV cameras installed in the area which could have provided some clue about the attackers. “One CCTV camera, which is placed close to gate no 3 of the Jama Masjid, is defunct. But we are relying on the footage from other cameras. We are also examining call records from the six towers in the area to get some clue,” a police source said.
The police sources said added that two men have detained from the city who are being questioned in connection with the case.