Presenting a humane face before public,knocking out criminals, terror modules

Concerted efforts made during Punjab Chief Minister CaptAmarinder Singh’s three years in office to reform and restructure the police force, and make it people-friendly and more effective in crime management, have succeeded to a substantial extent in cutting down crime, wiping out criminal gangs and thwarting all foreign-sponsored attempts to revive terrorism in the sensitive border state. The ongoing efforts will present a vastly improved humane face of the police in the coming months.

The firm resolve of CaptAmarinder Singh government to maintain, at all cost, the hard earned peace and tranquility in the state, has resulted in major criminals and gangs being neutralized, several terrorist modules busted, large quantities of arms and ammunition seized and action initiated by concerned authorities against many identified foreign handlers.

In an effort to provide justice to hundreds of people allegedly implicated in false cases during the previous regime, a Judicial Commission of Enquiry under Justice Mehtab Singh Gill was constituted and on its recommendations several cancellation reports have been filed in various courts, and punishments awarded to police officials for their lapses.

A Commission of Enquiry headed by Justice (Retd) Ranjit Singh comprehensively probed the cases of sacrilege, and subsequent police firing on protesters at BehbalKalan and Kotkapur, during the previous regime, which had anguished the Sikh community. Accepting its recommendations the CaptAmarinder Singh government identified police and civil officials for initiating legal action against them. A few of them have been convicted by the courts and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) is independently probing the cases to bring the guilty to justice.

Simultaneously, the state government increased the financial compensation to the families of the deceased and injured to Rs 1 crore along with providing jobs to them.

To sharpen the capabilities of the state police in dealing with terrorist actions, like fidayeen attacks, hostage situations and armed infiltration bids, a Special Operation Group (SOG) has been created on the lines of the National Security Guards (NSG). The intelligence wing of the state police has been restructured to create a separate ‘Internal Security Wing’ to specifically focus on anti-terrorism and anti-internal insurgency operations.

Enhancing its capabilities to tackle increased threat of cyber terror attacks, Punjab Police has established a state-of-the-art Digital Investigation Training and Analysis Centre (DITAC) in Mohali, only the 4th such facility in the country.

In the interest of speedy and professional investigation of cases, especially heinous cases, a separate police wing has been created, with specialised crime units in each district, by bifurcating them from the general law and order machinery. The new arrangement has started showing results with a number of pending and hitherto undetected heinous cases of crime being solved.

Among other measures, trial of rape cases are being fast tracked with a decision to set up seven dedicated courts for rape cases, and to protect women against crime at night, a facility for free pick-up and drop is being provided by the police.

The state police has also taken a string of citizen centric measures, which include establishment of a state-level Centralised Call Taking Centre (CCTC) in SAS Nagar with a 48 workstations facility and 26 district co-ordination centres. The Dial 112 project is functional across the state. Complainants have started getting updates via SMS regarding status of their cases and details of investigating officers (IOs) deputed.

Under a ‘One Police Officer One Village’ programme, a designated police officer, in the rank of ASI / HC / Constable, for each of the 12,700 villages of the state, will visit the village assigned to him or her once every week to understand the issues and concerns of the community.

Taking forward the agenda of reform of jail prisoners, an amendment to the Punjab Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Act, 1962 has provided for increasing the parole for prisoners with good conduct from 12 to 16 weeks in the interest of their better integration with society.

(The above content has been received from the Punjab Government under The Tribune Space Marketing Initiative)