Chennai: Calling for stringent measures to prevent drug peddling in the State, Chief Minister M K Stalin sternly warned police personnel of severe action if ganja or other narcotics were found to be sold within their jurisdiction.
Speaking at a ‘Chief Minister in field inspection’ programme at the Nagapattinam Collectorate on Friday to review the law and order situation in the districts of Nagapattinam, Tiruvarur, Thanjavur and Mayiladuthurai districts, Stalin stressed on the prevention of crimes against women and children, illicit liquor and narcotic drugs and heinous crimes like murder and dacoity.
Specially referring to the manner in which people who visit police stations were being ill-treated, he said the image of the police department was constructed on the basis of the way complainants, who approach them with problems, were being treated.
Urging police personnel to treat complainants with compassion and responsibility, he called upon top officers at the district level like DSPs and SPs to ensure that visitors to police stations were treated with dignity.
Since he was regularly getting memorandums of ill-treatment in police stations, he would like to speak to the complainants personally to know what was exactly happening inside the stations. He asked SPs not to skip the Wednesday grievance meetings and said that he had been hearing complaints on that.
He listed out the various measures taken by his government for the welfare of the police personnel like announcing weekly off for them, ordering the assigning of duty for women police only after 8 am, crèche facilities for children of police and development of facilities in police quarters.
With the DMK government taking over the reins of the State, the crime rate had gone down, the Chief Minister said, pointing to the trend of more companies and factories set up shop in the State as an indication of the decline in crimes.
Calling upon the police department to work cogently with officers at the top most level to police personnel at the lowest level functioning unitedly to earn a good name for the government, he told them that the grievances received under the ‘Chief Minister’s Address’ should be resolved on a priority basis.
Urging the police department to ensure that the crime rate was low, he told the top officials to deal with the cases effectively by producing evidence in courts and securing maximum punishment for accused persons. Many top police officers, including DGP Sankar Jiwal, attended the review meeting.
