Amid the Opposition parties allegation of rising crime in Bihar and unabated murders, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday held a high level meeting on law and order which was attended by all the top brass of police and Home Department.
In less than three months time this is the third meeting on law and order convened by the CM after his swearing-in as head of the Mahagathbandhan Government in November last. Bihar has witnessed sudden spurt of organised crime during the past three months in which engineers, traders and political activists were gunned down and police have not been able to arrest the main culprits.
The Thursday meeting which lasted for about three hours mainly discussed the organised crime, general law and order situation, nature of crime, strengthening of the police network and simplification of the rules to address the public complaints. On the first Monday of this month, when CM resumed his janata darbar, over one thousand people turned up mostly with complaints related to police and Nitish had to listen for over nine hours.
Director General of Police PK Thakur after emerging from the meeting said that law and order situation was threadbare discussed and the CM issued necessary directives to the top police and home department officials. He said the meeting will continue on Friday too.
For the past about three months the Opposition parties have fired salvos at the Nitish Government for its ‘failure’ to check crime and alleged that criminals were going scot free due to their political clouts, an allegation stoutly denied by CM and RJD supremo lalu Prasad. The lJP even demanded imposition of President’s rule in Bihar following the murder of its leader Baijanthi Singh last week.
Reacting to lJP MP Chirag Paswan’s criticism that nobody from the Government or from the ruling parties visited the bereaved family of its slain leader Baijnathi Singh, murdered on February 5, Deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad Yadav tersely remarked, “I don’t visit any person who had criminal background even if he belongs to my party. Baijnathi was accused in 20 criminal cases as per police records.”
Finance Minister and RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui said, “Crime graph in other States ruled by the BJP is higher. Those who accuse of bad law and order in Bihar should tell if anything wrong happened to them.”