On Thursday, Kurnool Range DIG Koya Praveen and Annamayya district SP V Vidyasagar Naidu said the arrests were made on Monday after Tamil Nadu police sought assistance from their Andhra Pradesh counterparts to track down Siddique and Ali.
Lakhs of devotees gathered in Puri for Lord Jagannath’s Ratha Yatra. Authorities deployed 10,000 security personnel, AI-enabled CCTV, and NSG snipers. The Odisha government and temple administration assured smooth conduct with new tech like an Integrated Command and Control Centre.
The Rath Yatra procession is scheduled to start from the temple at 4 pm from General Bazar and will return to the temple at around 4 am the following morning.
Dibyasingha Deba, the titular Gajapati Maharaja who heads the Shree Jagannath Temple Managing Committee (SJTMC), told PTI that he met a delegation of BJP leaders led by its former president Samir Mohanty, who filed a PIL over the matter in the Orissa High Court, and discussed the matter.
According to the Administrator of Puri Jagannath Temple, Ajaya Jena, the servitors testing negative for Covid-19 would be allowed to participate in the pulling of the chariots.