Chennai: Immediately after the government announced the decision to convert Veda Nilayam - the Poes Garden residence of late chief minister J. Jayalalithaa — as a memorial, police tightened the security in the neighbourhood.
There are 30 police personnel led by an inspector around Vedanilayam at 24/7 basis. Chennai police started the deployment after Jayalalithaa's politically ambitious niece Deepa Jayakumar and her brother had a skirmish inside the Veda Nilayam compound in the second week of June this year.
“Now also we have deployed the same strength but the security has been tightened after the announcement with strict checking,” a senior police official
said. “There was a rush to Poes Garden by media teams to take pictures and videos. So we introduced access control to avoid possible trespass into the house of former CM, as it happened in the past,” said a senior city police official.
Senior officials were however non-committal when asked if they were expecting any kind of trouble from supporters of TTV Dhinakaran, who were in control of the house after Jayalalithaa's close confident Sasikala went to jail or from Deepa and Deepak who are claiming to be the legal heirs of the properties owned by former chief minister.
Police sources said that currently nobody was residing in the house, which is guarded by four persons from a private security firm.
