"This morning, similar roll calls are being held simultaneously across Indonesia to mark the beginning of this operation by checking the preparations in the respective regions," Gen Karnavian noted here, Wednesday, during the roll call also attended by Marshal Hadi Thajanto, chief of the Indonesian Defense Forces.
Operation Ketupat is being conducted for 18 days from June 7 to June 24, 2018.
A total of 177 thousand personnel comprised those from the police and military, civilian security guards, and fire brigade officers, among others.
The operation focuses on safeguarding the exodus of homecoming travelers and their return after celebrating Eid al-Fitr in their hometowns.
"Extensive improvement in infrastructure has been conducted, and this year is relatively better than the previous one," he noted.
He urged police and military personnel to work hard to prevent traffic jams and accidents.
"We have to work hard to ease congestion and prevent accidents," he added.
As for stability in food prices, the Police`s Food Task Force has, so far, handled 495 food-related criminal cases, with 395 suspects.
"Hopefully, we would be able to prevent them from influencing the prices of food commodities," he remarked.
The operation will ensure that homecoming travelers will be free from thugs, grabbers, thieves, and other conventional criminals.
Moreover, the police and military personnel are ready to undertake mitigation efforts in case of a natural disaster.
"We are ready in case of a contingency situation," he noted.
Another target of the operation is to take precautionary measures and prevent terrorism.
Since the bombing incident in Surabaya last May, the Police`s anti-terror squad Densus 88 had arrested 96 terror suspects, 14 of whom were shot dead.
(f001/INE)
EDITED BY INE
(T.SYS/A/KR-BSR/F001) 06-06-2018 16:01:09
Reporter: Anita Permata D
Editor: Suharto
Copyright © ANTARA 2018
