An aerial view of Gandhi Maidan. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Police will start frequent patrolling inside the periphery of the Gandhi Maidan in addition to the deployment of private security personnel to curb suicide in the greens.

Senior superintendent of police Jitender Rana on Wednesday said such incidents were “unfortunate”.

Abhay Singh, a businessman, committed suicide by allegedly consuming some poison at Gandhi Maidan on Tuesday.

On August 23, a 22-year-old girl, identified as Anshumala, killed herself near the new statue of Mahatma Gandhi inside the ground.

A 22-year-old youth was found stabbing himself inside the Gandhi Maidan in front of his alleged girlfriend after she had rebuked him July 11, 2011. The youth died later on way to the PMCH.

“After the stampede, patrolling in the outer periphery of the Gandhi Maidan has been initiated and a magistrate along with some policemen is on patrol now. After the suicides, the police have decided that there will be proper and frequent patrolling inside the Gandhi Maidan from now on. Though there are instructions to the officers to go inside the Maidan in the late evening hours specially and take a round and check, the police plan to make it very regular and an-all day affair,” Rana said.

He added that the plan was to rope in guards from private security agencies for the task. “The police will rope in men from private security agencies who will patrol the Gandhi Maidan all through the day and evening in addition to the cops and looking for suspicious people,” he added.

A section of the policemen though said it was difficult to keep an eye on the entire Gandhi Maidan all the time.

“Since morning, till at least 9pm, people keep moving inside the Maidan premises. The main gates close after 6pm but some of the smaller gates remain open till 9pm. The police are present at different spots in the Maidan in the evening and frisk people. All the three incidents of suicides took place in daylight though. For the police, it is very difficult to keep an eye on each and everybody wandering or sitting inside the Maidan,” a police officer said requesting anonymity.