DGP Virk vows to break nexus of land-grabbers

Chandigarh, February 7, 2005
The Tribune

Admitting that a deep nexus of land-grabbers involving mischievous property dealers, musclemen or antisocial elements, unscrupulous police officers and certain influential people connected with social and political organisations, exists in Punjab, the Director-General of Police, Mr S.S. Virk, has asked all district police chiefs to identify all its members and bring them to law.

“It is necessary to identify and break this nexus, “ says Mr Virk, revealing that all complaints about land-grabbing would be dealt strictly in accordance with the law and exemplary action would be taken against policemen involved in the nexus.

Talking to The Tribune here this afternoon, Mr Virk, a 1970 batch officer, said that the police had an “onerous responsibility to reassert its credibility” by becoming people-friendly and humane.

“We have taken a serious view of the death of a Dalit youth in police custody. A case of murder has been registered against the police officer concerned. Clear instructions have been issued that custodial torture and deaths would be viewed seriously. Stringent punishment would be given to those found guilty in such cases,” said Mr Virk.

‘I am aware of numerous challenges that face Punjab Police. Rising crime is the main challenge. Population explosion, growing urbanisation and unemployment are forcing under and unemployed youth to take to crime.

“On terrorism front, things have remained peaceful. But we still have to remain alert and vigilant. Another challenge has been to put in place a credible public grievances redressal system. There has to be a follow-up and each complaint has to be redressed to the satisfaction of the complainant.

“Some areas of worry for us have been increase in the incidence of white collar crime, cheating, cases involving Non-Resident Indians, cyber crime, land-grabbing and smuggling of drugs. As far as drugs are concerned and since it has assumed alarming proportions, we may soon come out with a comprehensive action plan to curb this menace.

“Similarly, land mafias are responsible for creating social imbalances and disturbances besides affecting police functioning in a big way. Involved in the nexus are policemen who need to be taken to task,” said Mr Virk.

Crime relating to NRIs, he said, was mainly of three types — matrimonial, supari and land-grabbing. “In some cases, we have been successful in tracking down those behind murders and other heinous crimes committed in Punjab at the instance of those sitting abroad. In some cases, we have got convictions while a few other cases are at the prosecution stage. But transnational crime is a big issue as Punjab has high density of NRIs. We understand the problem in its enterity. We would evolve a system so that hardships suffered by NRIs at the hands of their own relatives and friends are eliminated. We want to cover senior citizens and ex-servicemen in this category also,” he said.

Mr Virk said that high fatalities on roads was a major area of concern. “We are examining all aspects as how to bring down the number of these fatalities. Better road and traffic management, starting of driving schools at district level, segregation of slow and fast traffic, removal of bottlenecks and stricter enforcement of traffic rules are some of the issues which are under consideration as a part of an action plan.

“We may on an experimental basis start driving schools in a district police line and depending upon its success, extend this experiment to other districts. Besides, we have to evolve some sort of traffic code to deal with the problem and end chaos on roads.”

Mr Virk says that training is an important component of any police organisation. Besides training policemen at the constable level, “I want to go a step ahead by taking training to the people. For example, those holding licenses for firearms, may not be well versed with their use. And in many an emergency, they are unable to use their weapons because of lack of expertise in using them. To begin with and by involving district magistrates and rifle clubs in districts, we may start some sort of training schools for them to train them in handling small weapons effectively.

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