22 June:In view of increasing terrorist threats on religious places, the 18th century Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi will soon have a biometric security system with installation of fingerprint scanners at every entrance.
Hydraulic gates, X-Ray machines, more dog squads and the latest electronic gadgets will also be the part of the new stepped-up security set-up at the temple, officials said.
Inspector General of Police (Varanasi) Praveen Kumar Singh told the news agency that in view of the increased terrorist threat and recent Jaipur serial blasts, it has been decided to enhance the temple security and as a first step, biometric systems will be installed in next three to four months.
Giving details, Amarendra Pratap Singh, the Additional Superintendent of Police, incharge temple security, said three fingerprint scanners each will be installed at all the five entry gates making it a total of 15 scanners.
The government has already approved the installation of one scanner and a proposal has been sent for the rest.
The ASP said all devotees coming to the temple will have to put their thumb on the scanner and the fingerprint will be sent to the central processor of a computer installed at the control room of the temple, which will match the data with the data bank in the main computer.
"The fingerprints and other relevant details of the known anti-national and anti-social elements of the entire country will be fed into the data bank," he said.
This will help in detecting if the fingerprint matches to that of any known criminal or terrorist, he said.Courtsey: DD NEWS