Policemen after a briefing for the torch relay security arrangements on Rajpath on Tuesday. Picture by Rajesh Kumar

New Delhi, April 15: “Anti-riot” vehicles screeched to a halt on Rajpath today and water cannons took aim at imaginary targets.

The security dress rehearsal for the Olympic torch relay has kicked off with the government deploying security personnel two days before the event. Hundreds of police — men and women in blue tracksuits — camped on roadside lawns for briefings from police commissioner Y.S. Dadwal.

On Thursday, there will be commandos on rooftops along the 3km route and helicopters could be keeping watch from the sky, officials said.

A jittery government would still not say exactly when the showpiece event will be held. “Sometime in the afternoon” was all that officials said.

“We cannot give out the time because of security reasons,” the minister of state for home, Shakeel Ahmed, told reporters.

“Why are they not telling us the time?” wondered veteran weightlifter Kunjarani Devi, invited by the Indian Olympic Association to watch the event. “The IOA has called us to a meeting tomorrow, maybe they’ll tell us then.”

Actress Soha Ali Khan has pulled out of the Olympic torch relay, citing “very strong personal reasons”.

Actress Soha Ali Khan today pulled out of the relay citing “very strong personal reasons”. Her brother Saif and actor Aamir Khan are expected to run.

Ahmed, the minister, conceded there was a lot of sympathy for the Tibetans in India. “Of course, we have sympathy… that’s why they are here. But we have a responsibility as a nation.”

The Tibetans were unperturbed. Around 2.30pm, a few hundred metres from North Block where meetings on security were taking place, about 30 protesters lit a torch and ran towards India Gate. It was apparently a rehearsal for Thursday morning’s parallel torch relay.

Twenty-seven men and women were put under preventive arrest but TV channels, informed in advance, broadcast the images. An embarrassed government asked the police to cancel the parallel relay by the Tibetan Solidarity Committee.

The committee said it had nothing to do with today’s protest, an effort by individuals. “Because of that incident, our programme is under threat. We are negotiating with the police,” said Youdon Aukatsang of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile.

At Tilak Marg police station, the arrested Tibetans were herded into the canteen. The “sympathy” Ahmed had spoken of was in evidence.

“We feel for them,” an officer said. “But we have no choice. They are guests while they are under arrest. We have bought bottled water for them.”

On Thursday, 600 police will run in two files on either side of the road to protect the torch. The inner ring will be manned by Chinese commandos, supported by the National Security Guard.