Haryana Police to draw up data on unlisted criminals

Geetanjali Gayatri

Chandigarh, January 18

The names of lesser known criminals from Haryana surfacing in Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala's killing and perpetrating crime in neighbouring states set the alarm bells ringing in the Haryana Police, which has decided to draw up a list of "unknown criminals" from the state through participatory policing.

Under the "gram prahari" initiative being prepared, the state police intend to reach out to the villagers for gathering information about "missing youth".

Sources said a team of cops, assigned particular villages in their respective areas, will be required to visit these every fortnight and interact with the villagers with the twin objective of ascertaining involvement of local boys with gangs and drugs. This exercise will be carried out across the state.

Sources said from the many names from Haryana in the Moosewala killing, only a couple of the criminals were already on the police radar. "The Moosewala case was an eye-opener. The names of local lads are associated with the crime in neighbouring states, including Western UP, Rajasthan and Punjab. Local youth involved with gangs operate essentially in area around Haryana only," an officer explained, adding that the "gram prahari" scheme is essentially aimed at getting intelligence input about all such criminals.

However, with no data available on other criminals whose names cropped up in connection with the gangs and the murder, the police have also decided to tap the villagers to gather information.

The issue was discussed at a meeting of the police top brass in Madhuban, chaired by Director General of Police PK Agarwal last month. Sources said the idea of encouraging a police-villager interface is to keep tabs on the goings-on in the villages especially in the growing context of rising drug abuse.

"Sometimes, innocuous information of a youth changing phones or vehicles regularly can be a clue that he is linked up to the crime world. If a youth has been 'missing' for over a year from his village, it could very well mean he is a part of a gang. The target is to identify all such youth and create a data bank to keep track of them. As far as the known criminals are concerned, the STF already monitors them," an officer explained.

'Gram prahari' initiative

• The 'gram prahari' scheme is essentially aimed at getting intelligence input about little-known criminals
• A team of cops will be required to visit assigned villages every fortnight and interact with villagers with the twin objective of ascertaining involvement of local boys with gangs and drugs
• Sources say the idea of encouraging a police-villager interface is to keep tabs on the goings-on in the villages, especially in the context of rising drug abuse

from The Tribune https://ift.tt/Yl5Trgw