Incident free New Year’s celebrations in Chennai Police limits

CHENNAI: In Greater Chennai Police (GCP) jurisdiction, no fatal accident was reported from Sunday evening, New Year's eve through Monday. Six accident cases were reported across the city, police said.

In the previous years, three fatal accidents each were recorded in 2021 and 2022 and one fatal accident was recorded in 2023.

"Further, it was a largely incident-free New Year with no law and order incidents except for minor skirmishes, " a senior police officer said pointing out that they were able to pull it off because of proper planning and preparations.

Revellers who gathered at public places like Marina Beach, Elliot's beach and other places were streamlined and were made to disperse by 1 am.

Commissioner of Police, Sandeep Rai Rathore went around the city on Sunday night, personally inspecting the security arrangements made by his team on public gathering places like Kamarajar Salai and interacted with the public.

As the clock struck 12, City Police Commissioner welcomed the New Year with a cake-cutting ceremony amidst police officers, and policemen in the presence of the public near the Labour statue and distributed the cake to the public.

Police had set up vehicle checkpoints at 140 places and elaborate arrangements were made to prevent accidents and violations such as driving under the influence of alcohol, overspeeding, rash and dangerous driving.

"We had 6741 special cameras with incident capture technology to report to the control room about any incident of wheeling or speeding. Accident-free new year was our motto, " said, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), R Sudhakar.

Traffic police personnel had also identified more than 100 persons who were caught racing in previous years and took an undertaking from them.

Also, 100 important junctions were also equipped with traffic lights. 78 Ambulances were stationed at strategic locations. Furthermore, special camps were established at 20 locations where motorists who were involved in traffic violations were educated on the dangers of breaking traffic laws and given appropriate advice.

Armed with surveillance by drones and CCTV, a total of 18000 police personnel drawn from various wings of the Greater Chennai Police (GCP) were on duty on New year's eve as part of security arrangements in the city.