Raising the pitch for total eradication of drugs menace and narcotics from the State, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Friday directed the police force to take this task as a mission and implement radical steps for elimination of corruption at 'thana' level so as to be capable of rendering better services to common people.
He was chairing a meeting of senior state police officers at Punjab Bhawan in which Suresh Arora, Director General of Police, all Zonal IGPs, Commissioners of Police, Range DIGs, district SSPs and senior officers at headquarters were present.
Sukhbir , who also holds home portfolio, emphasised that the main priorities of the police should be anti-drug campaign, curbing corruption at police station level, nabbing organized criminal gangs, night patrolling and campaign against drunken driving should also be launched.
Deputy CM directed that a state-level crack team should be set-up to monitor the activities of important identified gangsters and nab them. He forbade the district police chiefs against registration of false cases and made CPs/SSPs responsible for control of corruption at police station level.
Sukhbir stated that police should not be involved in illegal mining and should focus on increasing professionalism in the working of the police.
He directed the state police chief that the persons in the force with a bad record or involvement in drug offences should be identified and weeded out through compulsory retirement using existing provisions in service rules.
Deputy CM also announced a new scheme of granting recognition to police officials doing good work by selecting “Best Constable”, “Best Investigating Officer”, “Best SHO” etc. and honouring them at state-level functions on regular basis.
He also declared a policy for compassionate appointments in cases of line-of-Duty Deaths (loDD) which would offer posts of sub inspectors, in cases where eligibility conditions are fulfilled to the dependents/wards of non-gazetted police officers who lay down their lives in the line-of-Duty, while combating terrorist/militant, criminal or anti-national elements.
Sukhbirl informed that Punjab government would recruit about 7,000 constables, 465 of sub inspectors and 850 other employees to provide additional manpower for district policing.
He said the long pending issue of seniority in the ranks of Inspectors/SIs/ASIs/HCs had been resolved which would lead to over 3,200 promotions in the various police ranks that included 225 Inspectors, 400 Sub Inspectors, 660 Assistant Sub Inspectors and 1,700 Head Constables.