At a time when the communal violence and attacks on minorities had become a cause of concern in several States in India, Telangana was emerging as an oasis of communal peace and harmony.
For the second consecutive year the State remained free of any communal conflict or violence as no major communal incident was reported during 2017.
State Director General of Police M Mahender Reddy addressing annual press conference gave the credit for the peace to the people, specially in Hyderabad.
“While every SHO in the city, specially the old city was given a clear goal of maintaining peace 365 days a year, the people’s participation also contributed in a big way to ensure peace. We have been able to send a clear message that any troublemaker will be caught and prosecuted. People were confident that people will reach them within minutes”, he said.
“Even when some small disputes came up we did not allow them to flare up into a major trouble. The administration, all the departments of the Government also helped in maintaining peace. Stringent measures were taken to create confidence among the people. Government was also very firm and a clear message of zero tolerance towards communal violence was sent to the people”, he said.
local people say the turnaround was remarkable as once Hyderabad was known as “curfew city” due to the frequent outbreak of communal violence and imposition of curfew.
Mahender Reddy, who earlier served as the city police commissioner for three years said that the biggest demand for the CCTV cameras was from the people in old city as they were keen to
maintain peace. “Earlier in case of any trouble the police used to arrest the people in large numbers. But now with the installation of CCTV, the police was able to identify the culprits. Even the public representatives were also keen that CCTV cameras should be installed. This is also helping them as earlier people used to complaint to them that police was arresting innocents”.
The DGP said that the police would now replicate the same system all over the State to ensure communal peace and harmony and crush any attempt to create trouble. “This will be achieved with the cooperation of the people”, he said.
Giving the over all roundup of law and order during 2017, he said that the crime rate had gone up by 12.93% in the State and most of it was in three places of Rachakonda and Cyberabad adjacent to Hyderabad and Khammam district. He counted rapid urbanization, huge investments and the migration of people from other areas as contributing factors.
On the leftwing extremism, he said that the problem was under effective check in the State and extremist offences had decline by 90% this year compared to previous year. He said that the extremists were trying to regroup and become active in the inter State border areas such as border with Chhattisgarh but their attempts were foiled by the inter state border operations of the police.
“Telangana State committee (of CPI Maoist) was operating with 92 under ground cadres, out of which only 18 were from Telangana State and remaining from Chhattisgarh”, he said. 54 extremists were arrested and 26 extremists surrendered besides arrest of 18 extremist in inter State border operation, he said. There were 10 exchanges of fire in which five extremists were killed. 16 fire arms including AK-47 rifles were seized.
The crime against women had also increased by 18.3%. 1414 rape cases were reported till November this year against 1138 last year. Dowry deaths had also increased to 53 compared to 50 of last year.
He said a plan was devised for 2018 to “Build a safer Telangana together” in which emphasis will be given to the participation of the people and the community policing.
To make policing more visible, new vehicles will be provided to the police in the entire states on the lines of modernization of police in Hyderabad. like the up coming Command and Control centre in Hyderabad, mini command and control centers will be set up in all the districts.
As part of adoption of new technologies and to deal with the emerging challenges of increasing cyber crime, each of 800 police stations in the state will have a Facebook page and a Twitter handle. He said that as some posts on social media were also creating problems and troubles, they will be closely monitored.
To further strengthen the police force the state government has sanctioned 18295 posts and ten thousand personnel were already recruited and trained. They will join the force over the next two months. 17000 more personnel including three thousand odd in Hyderabad will be recruited and trained, he said.
