The Election Commission will use nine drone cameras for aerial surveillance of the nine islands that fall under the Gosaba Assembly constituency in South 24-Parganas district during the second phase of the Assembly polls on Thursday.

On Wednesday, officials of Baruipur police district conducted trial runs of drones at a few strategic locations.

“The trial runs have been successful. The drones will be extensively used on Thursday morning when the polling begins,” said Kamanashish Sen, superintendent of police, Baruipur police district.

Gosaba is one of the four Assembly segments, apart from Kakdwip, Sagar and Patharpratima, where polling will be held on Thursday. Polls to the remaining 27 seats in the district will be held on April 6 and 10.

Gosaba, one of the major delta islands in the Sunderbans, is covered by several creeks. There are at least nine major islands in the delta. Gosaba is the last inhabited place ahead of the deep forest of the Sunderbans. Because of their riverine location and distance, the islands have become safe havens for goons.

“We will use drone technology to ensure free and fair elections. The feed sent by the nine drone cameras from the nine islands will be monitored centrally by a police team. The drones will keep a watch on the vulnerable polling stations identified by the Election Commission,” Sen told The Telegraph.

“Our aim is to ensure free and fair polling even at remote locations in Gosaba in the Sunderbans,” Sen added.

To sanitise the area and as part of the administration’s confidence building measure, the police, with the support of central paramilitary force, launched a combing operation on the islands under Gosaba Assembly seat from Tuesday night.

Gosaba has been under the Election Commission’s scanner since the beginning of the poll process owing to its poor law and order and crime records.

Opposition parties, mainly the BJP, have lodged several complaints about alleged stockpiling of arms and bombs by the Trinamul Congress in the area.

On March 5, one person was killed and five injured in a blast when they were allegedly manufacturing bombs at Arampur in Gosaba.

Local sources said police operation had begun on Tuesday night, a few hours after campaigning ended.

A large police team led by SDO, Canning, Gobinda Sikdar, and officer-in-charge of Gosaba police Soumen Biswas conducted several raids at Gosaba and Pathankhali.

A senior police officer said: “The combing operation was undertaken as part of a confidence building measure. There has been no arrest. But we are clamping down on unauthorised gatherings. In the past one month, we conducted raids at several places in Gosaba and seized arms. We have arrested many suspected criminals also. So, we launched a fresh drive to ensure that people don’t panic and they participate in the polling process.”