Arunachal Pradesh home minister Bamang Felix on Wednesday asked the superintendents of police (SPs) of the Western Range to submit a comprehensive two-year plan and a five-year plan for their respective districts.
Felix, while addressing the maiden conference of the Western Range’s SPs at Ziro, said: “An ethnically diverse State like ours cannot be manned by uniform policing.”
“Local sentiments and ethos have to be considered while framing the plans both in terms of infrastructural developments and psychological interventions,” he said while urging the SPs to submit their tactically designed plans at the earliest.
While directing the SPs to submit the list of habitual criminals, slotting them into different categories as per their records, he said, “Criminals have no class, caste or clan. Zero tolerance against crimes should be the mantra for all our police personnel.”
Felix said a special common cell for the undivided Subansiri is in the pipeline owing to the similar pattern of crimes across the districts the undivided Subansiri district used to cover.
This, he felt, would facilitate inter-district coordination.
“Timely DPCs and promotions of the officers shall be one of my prerogatives. This should act as a catalyst for all the officers to be proactive and hard-working,” he said.
“The government will be soon launching ‘Hamara Arunachal Abhiyaan (HAA)’ wherein people from all walks of life, CBOs, women’s organisations, etc., will be assisting the Police Department in containing law and order situations within their respective jurisdiction,” the home minister said.
The HAA will facilitate CBOs in issuing social sanction against many crimes, he said while urging all the SPs to submit plans wherein interventions of CBOs shall be required to contain law and order issues that could cripple society.
All the SPs highlighted the activities in their districts.
They also brought to the notice of the minister issues pertaining to infrastructural gaps and manpower requirements. Issues such as hiring of IT professionals to tackle the ever-rising cyber crimes, training requirement for the police personnel, use of social media to create awareness and image-building of the police, etc., were discussed elaborately during the meeting.
DIGP (W) Apur Bitin also attended the conference.
Later, the minister along with Bitin inspected the DIGP office site at Yachuli, the headquarters of the Western Range.
Felix also interacted with the CBOs of Lower Subansiri district at the DC’s conference hall in Hapoli.
Terming the interaction session as the first pre-launch campaign for HAA to be launched soon, he said: “The police shall maintain the law and order in the State, but to contain it the CBOs have a major role to play.”
“In this Abhiyaan, the police shall seek the assistance of all the CBOs and enlightened people in the society to revolutionise the thought process of the youngsters and revive the lost peaceful status of the State. This paradigm shift will not happen in a year or two, but the process has to be started now.”
Appealing to the CBOs not to protect any criminals, the minister said: “A criminal doesn’t belong to any clan or tribe. A criminal should be dealt as per the provisions under the rule of law. With drug menace crippling our society, CBOs, NGOs and women’s organisations shall have to come forward unanimously to eradicate it.”
Also addressing the members of student unions, he exhorted them to introspect their role towards the student community and use their position to motivate the students in becoming law-abiding good citizens of the State.
TSD president Hage Tado called for registration of indigenous tribes, installation of CCTV cameras in vital and vulnerable places at Ziro and construction of a women’s police station.
Representatives from AWAZ and ANYA also presented their views. Deputy commissioner Chukhu Takar and DIGP (W) Bitin attended the meeting.