Policemen check the bag of a visitor to Gandhi Maidan on Monday. Picture by Jai Prakash

Consult your stars before visiting the Gandhi Maidan the next time. The policemen on duty there are anyway busy doing just that.

On Monday, four or five constables on duty at the green patch in the heart of the city were consulting two astrologers near the gates opposite Udyog Bhavan. Asked what they were doing, one of them said: “We are just trying to find out when we will get married.”

The eager bachelors were, however, unwilling to reveal their names.

At the other gates to the Maidan, too, policemen were quite casual about the security regime. There was no metal detector at any of the 12 entry points.

The security cover has reportedly been strengthened around the Maidan after six low-intensity blasts ripped through it during the BJP’s Hunkar Rally on October 27. The luscious green in the heart of the city remained shut for a week as security forces combed it for hidden explosive. The Khabardar Rally of the CPI-ML (Liberation) was shifted to Beer Chand Patel Marg. The Gandhi Maidan finally re-opened on Sunday.

“The security has been tightened. You can find policemen at different entry points. They are checking the bags of the visitors,” said an officer posted at the gate near Biscomaun Bhavan.

This correspondent, however, found the ground reality to be a little different. When she offered to get her bag checked by the policemen, an officer said: “Aapko bag dikhane ka zaroorat nahi hain. Hum jaante hain aap patrakar hain. (You don’t need to show us your bag. We know that you are a journalist.)”

The officer, from Gandhi Maidan police station, did not even ask to check this correspondent’s identity card. But it was not a special treatment for journalists only. Around 10-12 people entered the Maidan from the gate opposite Biscomaun Bhavan but only one woman was checked. She was asked to open her bag and show it to a policeman. (No woman police officer was on duty to frisk women visitors.) He took a look inside the bag and let her pass.

At the gate opposite SK Memorial Hall, a police officer explained their radical method for checking people. “We are only checking those who look suspicious,” he said.

Residents are not happy with the laid-back security measures, especially because the Maidan will host the Patna Book Fair and Shiksha Divas programmes this month.

Fifty-year-old businessman Ashok Kumar said: “I entered (the Maidan) through the Udyog Bhavan gate. Security here is a matter of concern.”

The only people happy with the lax security were schoolboys who could enter the Maidan without any obstruction and enjoy a game of cricket.

“Thank God there were no security checks. We could just enter and play cricket,” said Ravikant Dwivedi, a Class IX student of Miller High School.