Amid walkouts by Samajwadi Party and Congress members over deteriorating law and order situation in UP, the ruling BJP claimed in the Assembly that crime rate had fallen in the past three months ever since the party came to power.
During Question Hour, Opposition members were on their feets over deteriorating law and order situation claiming sharp rise in incidents of crime in the last three months.
Parliamentary Affairs minister Suresh Kumar Khanna maintained that the law and order situation was well under control and the common people too felt that crime cases have decreased.
Quoting the crime figures, the minister said that from March 15 to May 9 last, there were 729 murders, 60 cases of dacoity, 799 cases of loot, 2,682 cases of kidnapping and 803 cases of rapes in the state. He further said that the government has invoked National Security Act (NSA) against three criminals, Gangsters Act against 126 criminals and Goonda Act against 131 criminals.
Opposition members were however was not satisfied with the government’s reply. Alleging that the government has manipulated and suppressed crime figures, leader of the Opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary led SP members out of the House.
later, Congress members too joined them in the walkout. Congress leader Ajay Kumar lalu claimed that crime in the state has increased by leaps and bounds under the BJP rule.
BSP member lalji Verma, contradicted the government statement on the crime, saying that he got a report from some senior police officers saying that between March 16 to June 6 last, the number of dacoity cases were 81, while that of murder was 1,434.
SP member Parasnath Yadav said that most of the arrested people in these cases were granted bail by courts as the government was arresting fake people to cover up for their lapses.
Replying to another question by SP member Sanjay Garg, Parliamentary Affairs minister Suresh Kumar Khanna said that 1,950 cases of cyber crime were registered in the state between October 1, 2016 to May 2, 2017 and chargesheets were filed in 206 cases and final reports were attached to 217 cases in the courts.
The minister also said that two special cyber cell `Social Media Research Centre’ have been set up in lucknow and Noida. He said that the NOIDA cell will look after Meerut, Agra and Bareilly zones and the lucknow cell will cover Kanpur, Allahabad and Varanasi zone. However, the member was dissatisfied on the investigation in cases saying that only 21.7 per cent cases were disposed so far.
In response to another question by BSP member Mohammad Aslam Raini, the Parliamentary Affairs minister said that the police has to file verification report to passport office within 21 days of filing of the application for obtaining a passport.
He said that in June last, over 71,000 passports were issued in which police sent their report within 21 days expect for 313 cases, while in May, the number of delay in the passport was only 715 of the total 66,606 and in April it was 67 of the total 61,223 passport issued by the Regional Passport Office.