Slamming the Harish Rawat Government for scrapping the Governor’s order to set up a regular police station in crime-prone Tyuni area in Chakrata region and reverting to the previous revenue police set-up, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State president and leader of the Opposition Ajay Bhatt said on Saturday that the State Government is sticking to an anachronism for its vested interests.
“We must remember that regular police station was set up in response to the longstanding demands of the local people at the time when the State was under the President’s Rule at the behest of the Governor. Revenue police seems to have outlived its purpose,” he said.
Bhatt further said that the role of the revenue police since the time it came up in 1861 at the behest of the British Indian administration was glorious. “We heard instances of revenue police officer apprehending criminals while being armed with nothing better than bamboo sticks. But now the pattern of crime has changed. Revenue police is failing to rise to the occasion. They are, however, not to blame for that. They are not meant to take on the modern era crimes,” he said.
Supporting the demand of the people of Tyuni for bringing back the regular police station in their area, the BJP leader said that the State Government should act on it. “Things are really grim there. It is no time to pander to vested interests. Even invoking traditions would not do. Crimes must be curbed with a heavy hand and the regular police alone can do it,” he said.
Pointing his fingers at the state home minister Pritam Singh who is also the MlA of Tyuni area, Bhatt said he was instrumental in reversing things there. “He has surely some vested interests. He is stone -walling things, standing in the way of the regular police stepping in the sensitive tribal-dominated region.
Crimes happening thick and fast and drug peddling continuing unabated, the state government should overrule the home minister and allow regular police to set up a police station in the region. This would be in the interests of the people,” BJP leader said.
He said that there was a time when very few crimes were reported from the mountainous districts of the state. “Now the situation has changed. like what is happening in the plain districts, theft, crime against women and the like are on the rise in the mountainous parts of the state too. Things need a drastic solution,” he said.