A top-level meeting of law enforcers flagged the peril posed to public peace by police officers profiting from secret nexuses with criminals.
State Police Chief Anil Kant, who chaired the meeting, directed district police chiefs to report such clandestine alliances detrimental to law and order to the Police Headquarters.
Periodic intelligence reports generated by the State Special Branch resulted in departmental action against several “felonious” officers holding critical law and order positions recently.
Officials said that the so-called information-gathering relationship between officers and gangsters had, in some instances, incrementally evolved into a corrupt symbiosis and convergence of financial and political interests, imperilling public interest and the criminal justice system.
The police found that gangsters often funnel illicit proceeds from crime to their benefactors in the police department for protection. Environment crime and protection rackets were major avenues for police corruption.
The meeting was held against a strident opposition campaign against police highhandedness and criminal nexus. The SPC said the police should identify and prosecute the black sheep in their midst without giving wrongdoers any loophole for dodging legal jeopardy.
The meeting called for the speedy execution of long pending warrants and measures to improve the conviction rate. It decided to apply the KAAPA provision for the preventive detention of habitual offenders more proactively. The conference also spotlighted drug enforcement and anti-hoodlum drive as priority policing areas.
The police also flagged the need for field test kits to detect drug impairment in drivers, particularly those at the wheel of public transport buses and freight vehicles.
The meeting also reviewed the treatment received by petitioners at police stations and the quality and rapidity of law enforcement’s response to distress calls from the public. It concluded that improvement was required on both fronts. The law enforcement’s Emergency Response Support System (112) needed to respond more emphatically and speedily to emergency calls.
The police department’s general approach to the public had registered a qualitative improvement. However, “isolated incidents” of official misconduct and a lack of empathy for complainants, especially women, children and those hailing from marginalised sections of society, tarnished the department’s people-friendly image. Mr. Anil Kant announced a policy of zero tolerance for such misdemeanours.
He announced a special scheme to reduce cybercrime and a programme to prevent fly-by-night banking business operators from escaping with depositors’ life savings. The police would also crack down on Ponzi schemes operating under different guises in the State. The conference also considered accident reduction programmes via identifying and mitigating blackspot localities and surprise inspections of stations to detect illegal confinement and third-degree.
Published - February 22, 2023 12:12 am IST
