Announcing no new sops for the cops, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, tried to appease the police personnel by high-lighting the welfare work already done by his or previous governments. He also had high praises for the Department claiming that their alertness ensured peaceful celebration of many festivals and averted any possible terror attack.
Akhilesh Yadav was addressing the police force soon after paying rich tribute to those who laid down their lives while serving for the country last year. With nothing new to announce for the cops, Akhilesh went on counting that how his government had increased ex-gratia payments for the families of the deceased cops from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh, sanctioned Rs 309 crores for police modernisation, construction of barracks in 320 police stations, gave promotions to maximum number of cops, opening of new modernized control room in Kanpur, lucknow, Allahabad and Ghaziabad, CUG for better connectivity amongst cops etc.
Stressing to give special attention to vulnerable class (women, children, old-age citizens etc) and minority groups Akhilesh said that the crime trend is changing very fast with new challenges coming everyday before the members of law enforcing agencies so they must kept themselves ready to face any task by adopting new technologies both in crime control as well as in investigation. He said that to check crime against fairer sex, his government started round the clock women power help line (1090). He said that they forwarded facilities of lodging on-line FIRs for women under which any lady could register her complaint without visiting the police stations. Similarly for better traffic facilities, they were going to launch Highway Road Safety Network. He claimed that all the police stations of the state, control rooms and offices of senior officers were either connected or would be soon linked with Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS). To improve quality of investigation, he laid thrust on scientific way of probe for which they were going to open five for forensic science laboratories across the State. He claimed that they also forwarded facilities of getting a NOC for fire safety on-line.
Earlier, director general of police Al Banerjee said that last year 126 policemen in the State had laid down their lives while serving for the country. Chief Secretary, Alok Ranjan was also present along with other senior officials of home and police departments. The history of commemoration day traces back to October 21, 1959, when a patrol party of CRPF, led by sub-inspector Karan Singh, was ambushed by the Chinese forces at Hot Springs ladakh and 10 jawans were killed. The bravery and resultant sacrifice of jawans fighting at 16,000 ft altitude, in extremely cold conditions and against all odds, is an epitome of rarest of the rare courage. On October 21 every year, the commemoration parade is held as a mark of respect to police martyrs, who sacrificed their lives in the line of duty. The arms are reversed and a two-minute silence is observed in the honour of the departed souls.