By Our Special Correspondent
Shillong: Since May 16, traffic police across the State have been deputed to remove dark tinted film from car windows and windshields following the recent Supreme Court ruling.
The Shillong Traffic Police have been actively performing their duties but there appears to be some ignorance among the general public who see this exercise as a hyper-active assertion of authority by the Police. They also accuse the police of being biased in favour of those in positions of authority and being strict with private vehicles.
Reacting to the above accusations, Meghalaya DGP N Ramchandran said there is already an existing law even without the Supreme Court order.
“In the interest of keeping this law we tried to enforce the existing order three months ago. Now with the Supreme Court order the Police have no authority to exempt anyone except on security grounds. There is no room for interpreting the SC order otherwise.”
Ramchandran informed that only those with high security threat will be allowed to continue with their tinted glasses. When asked who will decide the security threat of a person, the DGP said there is a Committee comprising the Intelligence agencies, the State Police and representative of the Government which will meet shortly to decide who the vulnerable individuals are and what category of security they will be provided.
“Today the Traffic Police came to the Police headquarters to remove the dark film from the vehicles of all senior police officials, so there is no question of any bias in the implementation of the Supreme Court ruling. Even senior bureaucrats are subject to the same order,” Ramchandran explained.
Reacting to the observations by members of the public that the chief minister uses a private vehicle and how that could be exempted from the SC ruling, Ramchandran said the chief minister is entitled to Z category security irrespective of whichever vehicle he uses.