Chief Minister of the state Mr. Vijay Rupani clearly stated that the first step towards holistic development is a dedicated system of ‘Law and Order’. Addressing a press conference today, the Chief Minister said, “The state government is committed to provide citizens of Gujarat a safe and secure environment. It is our topmost priority. And to ensure the same, the administration has given police personnel the freedom to operate and reduce crime rate and illegal activities. This is the only reason why we have been able to increase the conviction rate today.”
The Chief Minister further announced that the state government has decided to abolish the Rapid Response Cell of the Police Department. The government has decided to give more powers to the Superintendent of Police (S.P). A dedicated surveillance system will be put in place to curb crime rate.
The state government has come up with cyber police stations and established a dedicated network of CCTVs across the state to monitor various activities and catch criminals. The Trinetra Project does constant monitoring from the police control room.
The state government plans to use Body Cameras for its police personnel in the near future.
Minister of State for Home Mr. Pradeepsinh Jadeja said, “We aim to promote a safe living environment and we are taking necessary steps to ensure the same. We have introduced Land Grabbing Act, amended PASA, introduced GUJCTOC etc.”
Director of ACB, Mr. Keshav Kumar gave details on the measures taken by the police department to reduce corruption. The state government, headed by the Chief Minister, has given more powers to the ACB and provided them modern tools and equipments to solve cases faster. Today, the conviction rate has increased to 41%.
The ACB has been successful in solving a number of cases related to Dis-appropriate Assets. Unregistered and illegal property worth more than Rs.150 crores has been recovered from criminals by the department in the last 5 years.
21 cases in 2016, 8 cases in 2017, 12 cases in 2018, 18 cases in 2019 and 38 cases in 2020 were registered for Dis-appropriate Assets. The department could find and recover property (based on Jantri Rates for a particular year) worth Rs.26 crores in 2016, Rs.15 crores in 2017, Rs.3 crores in 2018, Rs.27 crores in 2019 and Rs.50,11,12,824 in 2020. The department has confiscated unregistered property worth Rs.33 crores from in 2021.
Talking about the cases of corruption, the Director said, “258 cases in 2016, 148 in 2017, 332 in 2018, 255 in 2019 and 199 in 2020 were registered. 433,213,730,470 and 310 people were arrested for the respective years.
The ACB started an independent Prevention Vigilance Unit, a technical forensic unit, interrogation room using assistance worth Rs.3 crores from the state government. The department has also used experts from forensics, enforcement, finance, technical and revenue areas.
ACS of Home Department Mr. Pankaj Kumar said, “The state government introduced Land Grabbing Act in order to curb illegal land grabbing activities and the people associates with such crimes. A committee has been formed at the District level for ensuring effective implementation of the same. And the administration keeps an eye to ensure that the cases are solved in a timely manner.”
647 applications have been received under the Land Grabbing Act till date. Out of this, 42 of them are through the Suo-Moto via Collector. 16 FIRs have been registered and it has been found that illegal land of the size 1 lakh 35 thousand sq. metres has been illegally captured by various land mafias. Valuation of this land based on the ongoing Jantri rates is nearly Rs.220 crores.
Talking about ‘PASA’, DGP Mr. Ashish Bhatia said, “A proposal at the DCP or the Commissioner level is put to implement PASA. It is approved by the concerned Collector and then implemented.”
Cases against 1247 people have been registered till 31/12/2020 (for the old and new rules of PASA). Crimes have been registered against 90 for gambling, 15 for money laundering, 15 for harassment and 9 for cyber-crimes.
11 cases have been registered under GUJCTOC and more than 100 criminals have been arrested. Recently, 26 cases in Vadodara, 2 cases each in Surat, Amreli, Ahmedabad and Jamnagar have been registered under GUJCTOC.
The police department has also started to track and arrest various absconding criminals, after the DGP-IG conference. More than 20,000 criminals have been fond and necessary legal actions have been taken against them. The DGP said, “We arrested a wanted criminal Dharmendra who was charged with Visa Fraud. Sandip Gupta was re-captured from Mumbai for running an illegal gang for stealing oil from ONGC and IOC pipelines. He used to operate from New Delhi. The ATS cell will further investigate this matter and find out insights for this nexus.”
