Intelligence wing caught completely off guard

“The Marina beach cannot be used as a protest venue and we had no idea that such a gathering was being planned,” a senior police official said. Even after the protests, the city police had no clue that it would to grow to such an extent exposing lapses in the state’s intelligence gathering mechanism. Reliable sources said that senior police officials have been pulled up for this glaring failure. However, the agitators, so far, have been holding a peaceful protest and even helped the police ease the traffic on Kamarajar Salai by preventing the protesters from coming on to the road. 

“We are tensed as long as the protesters continue on the sands of Marina. We expected that a positive announcement from the Chief Minister would have ended the protest but that has not happened and our tension continues,” a senior police official said. 

City commissioner of Police S George visited the Marina on Thursday and even held an impromptu meeting with his junior colleagues after he received the intelligence inputs. 

The police force deployed at Marina have been very cordial with the protesters and did not let the situation go out of control, except for an occasion when they chased away a group of youngsters, who tried to block the roads. The Chennai city police are also tracking intelligence inputs suggesting that students wing of a political party is likely to infiltrate into the crowd of protesters at Marina to unleash violence against the policemen in a bid to disrupt the peaceful upsurge.