Gujarat Police has announced a special security and traffic-management plan for more than 22,000 Navratri garba venues across the state, including party plots, public events and neighbourhood celebrations. The arrangements are intended to maintain law and order and create a safer environment for women and young people attending the festivities.
According to the report by Gujarat Samachar, the state will host more than 370 garba events at party plots, around 3,000 public garba programmes and approximately 19,000 smaller street-based events. The scale of the celebrations will require security deployment across major cities as well as smaller urban and semi-urban locations.
State police chief G.S. Malik held a meeting with district and city police chiefs to review the preparations and issue instructions for Navratri. The police plan includes what the report describes as a three-layer security arrangement at garba venues. Entry and exit points, CCTV coverage, security cameras and crowd-management systems are expected to form part of the arrangements, particularly at larger events.
Women’s safety teams, known as SHE Teams, will be deployed at private and traditional garba events. The teams will operate in uniform as well as plain clothes, allowing officers to monitor venues and respond to complaints without being limited to visible security posts. The report said the teams have been given a special responsibility during the festival period.
Large venues have also been directed to arrange metal detectors and breath analysers. These measures are intended to strengthen screening at entry points and identify risks linked to prohibited objects or alcohol consumption. The report did not provide a separate list of venues where the equipment will be deployed or specify the enforcement procedure for each location.
Police, home guards and traffic personnel will be deployed in connection with the events. Their responsibilities will include maintaining order around venues and supporting traffic arrangements as large crowds arrive and leave. The number of personnel assigned to individual locations was not stated in the report.
The police will also monitor social media during Navratri. Authorities are concerned that objectionable posts could be used to disturb the religious and public environment during the celebrations. The report said police officials had been instructed to maintain surveillance and register cases promptly when offences are identified.
The security plan reflects the administrative challenge posed by Gujarat’s distributed festival infrastructure. Unlike a single stadium event, Navratri celebrations take place simultaneously in formal commercial venues, public grounds and neighbourhood streets. This spreads the policing task across thousands of locations and makes coordination between venue organisers, local police, traffic teams and municipal systems central to implementation.
The announced arrangements will remain the basis of police deployment during the Navratri celebrations, with security, women’s safety, social-media monitoring and traffic management forming the main operational priorities identified in the report.
