HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, April 6: Chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that Assam is on the path of peace because of the unstinted contribution of Assam Police personnel as he reiterated his government’s commitment to empower the police force with latest technologies.
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Speaking at the passing out parade of the 178th batch of successful un-armed and recruit constables at Lachit Borphukan Police Academy in Dergaon today, the chief minister claimed that the state is on the path of peace and progress because of the role played by the forces.
A total of 1,715 newly-recruited unarmed constables of the Assam police, including 535 women, passed out of the Lachit Borphukan police academy on Thursday, making it the largest batch in the state’s history.
This 178th batch of the Assam Police is the first batch of the academy, which was upgraded from the earlier Police Training College that was set up in 1947.
The chief minister said that his government is working to make Assam police a zero vacancy force and equip it with latest technological interventions to help the police force to deal with the modern day crime.
“You will face a lot of challenges on duty. With courage, integrity, honesty and accountability, you will have to serve the people and the nation,” Sarma told the new recruits.
He said that at times, the distance between people and police grows due to misuse of the uniform, leading to hatred towards the force in the minds of the common man.
“We need to remain a friend of the people. Beating up poor rickshaw pullers must be a thing of the past. The lathi, gun and courage of Assam Police must be used against criminals only,” he said.
Sarma said the atmosphere in police stations was not very people-friendly due to decades of fights against insurgents, but that situation has changed now.
“Assam police is now leading a visionary fight against drugs. In the last two years, it registered 4,646 cases under the NDPS Act and arrested 7,723 people. Similarly, 203 cases of human trafficking were filed, 173 traffickers were nabbed and 358 people rescued,” he said.
“With the increase in strength, the Assam police’s operations against drugs and other social menaces will get a boost,” he added.
The government created five commando battalions in the last two years, and is going to recruit 6,373 personnel in the forest department in the future, Sarma said.
The Assam police has two branches of constables — armed branch (AB) and unarmed branch (UB). AB constables are issued firearms, while the UB personnel are deployed with lathis only.
DGP Singh said, “In the last two years, we have recruited 14,315 personnel, including 1,715 persons, in different ranks of Assam police. After this, another batch of 4,500 personnel will pass out in September-October.”
Once these 19,000 personnel are recruited, there will be no vacancies in Assam police, which will be a rare force in the country to have achieved this feat, he said.
“In Assam Police, we never had a passing out parade of this magnitude. This is historically the largest batch,” Singh said.
