Berhampur: With just a few months left for the panchayat elections, the police are gearing up for the process. As a first step, the police have decided to put in known anti-socials in the districts of Berhampur, Boudh Ganjam , Gajapati and Kandhamal behind bars.Inspector General of Police (southern range) Amitabh Thakur asked the superintendents of police to launch a special drive to put the anti-socials behind bars before the elections for the rural bodies, scheduled to be held in the month of February, next year."Apart from the special drive, we have asked them to prepare a list of troublemakers, identify the vulnerable areas keeping in view of the pre and post-poll violence reported in the previous election and to make a list of the areas categorized as hyper sensitive, sensitive and low-sensitive for trouble-free panchayat elections," Thakur said.In the last panchyat election held in 2012, as many as 138 poll-related cases had been registered in the five police districts. "These election-related cases were from pre, post as well as election time," an official source said.The highest number of 47 poll-related cases had been registered under Berhampur police district while Ganjam (45), Boudh (27), Gajapati (17) too reported election related incidents. "Only two such cases had been registered in Kandhamal district," the source added.Sources, however, claimed no poll-related causality was reported in these districts in the last panchayat elections.Police, though, seemed worried with the sudden rise in crimes in rural areas ahead of the elections. "SPs have been asked to conduct raids and strongly deal with crimes against women, weaker sections and to create awareness about sorcery among the people," another source said.While at least two persons were beaten to death at Chudangapur under Gajapati district's Adava police station limit by some villagers as they suspected them to be practising witch-craft, a man was allegedly assaulted and fed excreta at the tribal dominated Kutabadapali village under Ganjam district's K.Nuagaon police station limit recently as he was suspected to be practising witch-craft, a source said.Police arrested seven persons in connection with the twin murders and another four for assaulting a man in Ganjam.

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