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Scores of police personnel are to be deployed at strategic locations throughout the country to ensure peace and security before, during and after the Christmas festivities. The deployment forms part of security arrangements being rolled out by the Ghana Police Service towards an incident-free end-of-celebrations. The Director General of Operations of the Ghana Police Service, Commissioner of Police Mr John Kudalor, made this known when he launched the fifth edition of �Operation Father Christmas� in Accra yesterday. The operation, which was commenced in 2010, is used to roll out security arrangements to ensure an incident-free Christmas. Highlights Addressing the launch, Mr Kudalor said the police would organise confidence-building patrols in the form of route marches in all the regional capitals to send the signal to criminals that �we have resolved to fight crime. It is not to intimidate the public but to assure them that we are ready to protect them�. Though he would not state the total number of police personnel to be deployed for the operation, he said about 2,000 recruits currently undergoing training would be deployed to assist with crime prevention during the exercise. He said police personnel participating in the operation would wear special jackets with their names and identification numbers on them for easy identification and also to deter them from engaging in illegal activities. Places where police personnel would be deployed would include business centres, the beaches and other places of entertainment. Mr Kudalor said personnel from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service would be deployed to the market centres, places of religious worship and entertainment centres to gather intelligence and arrest criminals. The police, he said, would also be on duty to protect national and economic assets, while personnel of the Motor and Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) would be at all intersections to ensure strict compliance with road traffic rules. �The police will be at lorry parks and lorry stations to ensure that drunken drivers do not drive, vehicles with worn-out tyres and none approved vehicles such as the containers fabricated into cars are not used to carry passengers during the Christmas festivities,� Mr Kudalor said. To show their resolve to maintain law and order, the Police Service assembled 1,015 policemen dressed in their full gear to indicate which unit of the service they belonged at the launch.