Insurgency Adversely Impacts Criminal Justice System: Rajnath Singh
At a meeting in Guwahati on Saturday, Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, addressed the effect of insurgency on the North Eastern region’s criminal justice system.
Mr. Singh was speaking at the meeting of Chief Ministers of eight North Eastern States, and said the people of the region have suffered through the ongoing trauma of insurgency for too long, and now they must reap the dividend of peace.
“Insurgency has badly impacted the criminal justice system in the region. There has been a marked increase in low visibility yet high impact violent crimes like kidnapping for ransom and extortion in Assam and Meghalaya,” Rajnath Singh said.
Criminal Justice System Undermined
The Minister said the violent insurgency has severely undermined access to justice for the people in the region. In some states, the ratio of prosecution of criminals for serious crimes is disturbingly low.
State police are to pay more attention to the registration and investigation of crimes and diligently pursue those cases through the courts, to punish criminals who “commit heinous crimes.”
A Special Investigation Cell led by RN Ravi, Joint Intelligence Commissioner is to tackle cases involving extortion and kidnapping for ransom.
RN Ravi was appointed Joint Intelligence Commissioner in August 2014.
RN Ravi, Joint Intelligence Commissioner to lead Special Investigation Cell to tackle cases involving extortion and kidnapping for ransom.
Illegal Firearms
Another worrying problem is illegal firearms. Minister Singh said illegal weapons from across the border are sold not only in this region, but also beyond.
“Dimapur has become a hub of smuggled weapons. Existence of illegal weapons will continue encouraging crimes and vitiating the security eco-system of the region,” Singh said in his address.
The Union Home Minister urged Chief Ministers to launch sustained drives against illegal weapons, to free the region from such arms.
In one example of security forces capturing illegal arms last week, police and CRPF Cobra commandos launched an operation in three different places near Salbari police station in Assam’s Baska district.
Three Bodo militant group linkmen were arrested, and a cache of arms, ammunition and explosives was recovered.
The cache included 7 kilograms of RDX, two detonators, an AK-56 rifle with magazine and 30 rounds of ammunition, a factory made pistol with magazine, two chinese grenades, 52 live rounds of ammunition for the AK-series rifle, 5 rounds of 9mm ammunition.
Mr. Singh’s main emphasis was to have a zero tolerance policy on the worst problem, which is the continuing insurgency.
In this video, the Home Ministry core group spoke to reporters about reviewing security along the border with Myanmar.
