‘President’s Colour’ award boosts Assam Police morale
HT Bureau
Guwahati, May 7: The Assam police have become the tenth state to receive the most prestigious President’s Colour award in the post independence India, which has morally boosted the organisation, announced L R Bishnoi, special DGP at a press conference organised at the office of DGP Assam on Saturday.
It would be noteworthy that the Police department of any state receives this highest national honour for police force only once. Though Assam police have achieved innumerous success during the last two and half decades in handling law and order duties, particularly in the state. Being nominated to receive the prestigious President’s Colour recognition, the state police force has been able to be widely recognised at the national level for its dedicated services as well as different contributions. In the last span of four years too, the state law and order enforcing agency have been able to drag a lot of success staring from surrender of militants to operations against drug peddlers. A total of 4,203 cadres of NDFB (inclusive of four fractions) have been rehabilitated by Assam Government so far only due to the co-operation of the state police force. 1,926 former Karbi militants too have also been rehabilitated.
Besides, 164 cadres of NLFB as well as 181 cadres of DNLA have declared ceasefire. 169 cadres of UGPO and 77 cadres of TLA too have unconditionally surrendered on January 27 this year. Further, the Assam police recovered a total of 1,354 weapons from different extremists’ groups since 2016 till date. During this period members of various militants’ groups deposited a total of 912 weapons at the time of surrender. Arresting 16 jihadi group members(12 and 4 from Barpeta and Bongaigaon district respectively) is another success for the state police force during this period.
On the other hand, decrease of crime rate in the last one year and handling different crimes successfully too have added a shining to the organisation.
The pending no. of cases with the state police stations, from 1,09,081 in May last year have now been reduced to 83,947.The average crime rate of 384 per lakh population too have come down to 222. The average monthly registration of cases with the police too have decreased a lot. Further, rate disposal of cases too have raised till the last quarter of the period. The most important matter is that in the praiseworthy hunt for the drug peddlers, the Assam Police has registered 2,834 cases under NDPS Act, arrested 4,838 odd drug traffickers and seized 94 kgs of Heroin, 22,348 kgs of Ganja, 187 kgs of Opium, 38 lakh of Yaba and other tablets, 2.2 lakhs of Cough Syrup bottles, 214 kgs of Cannabis, 0.31 kgs of Cocaine, cash amount of Rs 2.4 crores and 320 vehicles. Destroyed 648 bighas of Opium cultivation and 32 bighas of Cannabis cultivation till date. Drugs worth more than 548.53 crores have been seized by the force in the year concerned. Besides, during the present tenure of the state government, the Assam Police has registered 141 cases of Human Trafficking, arrested more than 104 human traffickers and rescued around 250 persons from the hands of the miscreants.
A total of 163 cases of smuggled Burmese Supari were also registered by the Assam police during the present Assam Government tenure. The force have seized 53 lakh kgs of suparis, auctioned 1.6 lakh kgs generating a revenue of Rs. 6.53 crores, arrested 182 persons and seized 146 vehicles in the year. About 1,100 cases of cattle smuggling were registered by the force during the year. A total of 992 smugglers were arrested and 9,454 cattle’s as well as 417 vehicles were recovered by the police. The credit for collection of Rs 48.93 crores towards fines for Motor Vehicle Act violations in the state during the year also goes to the state police force. On the other hand CID, Assam has successfully investigated the AMTRON financial fraud as well as TET appointment fraud cases bringing glory to the department. During the year, a total of 2,407 citizens registered complaint of financial cyber fraud and using hi-tech mechanism, the CID has successfully recovered upto 33.1 percent of the defrauded amount, making Assam in the list of India’s top 5 states regarding percentage of recovery of defrauded Cyber Fraud amounts.
With an aim of creating a ‘Drug free Assam’, besides various operations and plans, the Assam police have also started training programmes for handling drug trade. Another important milestone for Assam police during the year is the joint venture of setting up of 11 special help desks for assisting women in distress.
IGP vigilance Surendra Kumar, IGP I Krishna, DIG Lachit Boruah, DSP N Singson were also present in the press meet and delivered their version.