Attack on aged persons worries Kharge

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, AUG. 7. The Home Minister, Mr. Mallikarjun Kharge, on Tuesday held a prolonged closed-door meeting with the City police officers on the recent incidents, especially the spate of murders and the encounter in which the three underworld elements were killed by a joint team of Bangalore and Mumbai police.

According to sources, Mr. Kharge specifically referred to the activities of the Dandupalya gang and some of the murders for gain and stressed the need to curb them. He is said to have sought to know how the gang was active despite several of its members having been nabbed by police. He was particularly worried that old persons were being targeted by the gang.

Mr. Kharge is said to have discussed the serious crimes which had been reported in the jurisdiction of the DCPs and sought details of the progress made to solve them. He reviewed crime statistics as well.

The police officers told the Minister that shortage of direct- recruit sub-inspectors had hindered their functioning. While the City needed 400 direct-recruit SIs, the Government had provided only 59. Most of the serving SIs were rank promotees.

The sources said the Minister discussed the problems ``head by head,'' including modernisation, recruitment of police personnel, crime detection, law and order maintenance, and communication and transport facilities required to improve policing.

Later, Mr. Kharge told presspersons that he had asked the police officers to keep intense vigil in the areas where aged persons lived alone and ensure that the criminals did not enter such areas.

He said he had directed them to intensify the neighbourhood watch scheme and to be on the look out for strangers who frequented the different areas of the City.

However, he was happy that the City Police had made good progress with regard to some of the recently reported important cases. Barring one or two, most of the murder cases had been solved, he said.

The Home Minister reiterated that the Government would recruit 1,015 policemen for the City in two phases to strengthen 44 of its police stations, at the earliest.

The State would recruit a separate set of policemen for providing security to the High Court. The rules were being framed for this.

So far as reorganisation of the Bangalore City Police was concerned the Government intended to merge the parts of the jurisdiction of the Bangalore Rural SP, which lay adjacent to the jurisdiction of City Police Commissioner, with the latter. This was in view of certain operational difficulties. Such areas could be headed by another Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP). The Director-General and Inspector-General of Police, Mr. V.V.Bhaskar, would work out the details.

There was a State-wide need to recruit over 300 sub- inspectors directly for law and order, intelligence, traffic and crime detection. The process of promoting in-service policemen for 150 of these posts had suffered in view of a case pending in the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal. Once this case was closed, the process would be completed. For the remaining posts, an advertisement would be issued soon, he said.

Mr. Kharge also reiterated that the Government would spend about Rs.72 crores to modernise the State Police. This money would be spent by September, while the Government hoped to get another Rs.75 crores from the Centre soon.

The Additional Chief Secretary and Principal Secretary for Home, Mr. M.B.Prakash, Mr. Bhaskar, and the Police Commissioner, Mr. T.Madiyal, were among the officers who attended the meeting.

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