Two-day coastal security exercise Sagar Kavach begins

The two-day coastal security exercise 'Sagar Kavach' for Kerala and Karnataka began on Wednesday with the aim of checking coastal security mechanism and validating standard operating procedures.

The two-day coastal security exercise 'Sagar Kavach' for Kerala and Karnataka began on Wednesday with the aim of checking coastal security mechanism and validating standard operating procedures. It is a half-yearly exercise which will end on October 8. It is conducted and coordinated by the Indian Coast Guard and Indian Navy along with other stakeholders like Coastal Police, Police Special Branch, Intelligence Bureau, Customs, Immigration, Department of Port, Department of Fisheries, Director General of Lighthouses, and fishing community.

In the mock drill, participants are divided in two teams: Red (attack) and Blue (defence). Red Force team acts as terrorists and attempts to infiltrate into coastal areas of the state for attacks on VAs and VPs while Blue Force team establishes coastal security surveillance to intercept and neutralise the infiltration attempts. During the exercise, attacks were simulated at important government and private places to evaluate the security mechanism of concerned agencies. The exercise has the objective of integrating coastal population and fishing communities with coastal security set up and serve as 'eyes and ears' of security forces.

In this exercise, communication between different agencies, timely flow of information, collection and dissemination of intelligence were also evaluated. (ANI)