In view of the deteriorating law and order situation and an upward trend in criminal activities in Pipili block of Puri district, people of the block located close to Bhubaneswar are now seeking inclusion of their area under the Commissionerate Police system of the Urban Police Department (UPD).
A Public Interest litigation (PIl) writ petition to this effect was filed in the Odisha High Court on Wednesday in which the petitioner has sought the intervention of the court to bring Pipili under the Urban Police Department (UPD) for better policing.
Petitioner Nishikanta Mishra, a resident of Pipili and a practising advocate of the High Court has prayed the court that in view of the growth of population of the area and subsequent growth of crimes there, the people of the area want the block brought under the Commissionerate Police system for better policing.
Making the Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, DGP, Puri district Collector and Commissioner of Police as opposite parties in the petition, Mishra claimed that several representations by the people to these Government officials earlier have yielded no result for which he has approached the High Court.
In his petition, Mishra has also questioned that when the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) is now making sincere efforts to bring some bordering villages of Pipili block into the civic body’s jurisdiction, why the block shall not be part of the Urban Police DepartmentIJ
Giving statistics over the growth of criminal activities in Pipili, Mishra has mentioned that a single police station in the area is becoming highly insufficient to maintain law and order in the area, which has politically become very volatile. Crime syndicates are now operating in Pipili block for which rapes, murders, economic offences as well as political violence are on the rise.
Mishra, who has been championing the cause of the 2011 Pipili gangrape and murder case, has also not failed to mention about the issue in his PIl by stating that the police officers in Pipili here are always reluctant to register the FIRs of poor and Dalit class people.
“For similar police inactions, a police inspector here was dismissed from service while another police inspector was murdered,” Mishra has pointed out in his petition and urged the High Court to direct the State Government to bring Pipili block under the Urban Police Department.