25-member police team on the job
SHILLONG: In order to ensure speedy investigation of what has been termed as special report cases (SRCs), the East Khasi Hills police have decided to form a team of 25 officers who will dedicatedly look into such cases.
Cases pertaining to murder, rape, cases involving huge loss of government property, allegation leveled against a government servant etc will come under the purview of the SRCs.
East Khasi Hills Superintendent of Police M Kharkrang said that his department is in the process of earmarking officers who will man this unit.
“These capable officers will be pulled out from the mainstream police work and will be shifted to a unit which will entirely look into the speedy investigation of SRCs,” Kharkrang said adding that the same has been done to ensure better and speedy investigation.
Kharkrang informed that government has already sanctioned the new posts and an order has also been passed in this regard.
SP City, Vivek Syiem said the officers would be selected on the basis of their ability to handle SRCs. “There are some officers who are good in maintaining law and order while others are better at investigation,” he said adding that the department is currently trying to identify such officers who will be able to man the unit.
Admitting that manpower shortage is one problem the department has been facing for a long time, he said if a police station has only two officers, it would be difficult to pull out one and assign him to handle the SRCs.
“We will have to adjust with all these limitations for the time being,” the SP City said.
It may be mentioned that the state government is proposing to separate the investigation unit from the law and order unit to ensure that cases are disposed of faster.
Admitting that the investigation has been affected to some extent due to the law and order situation in the state, the EKH SP said, “We do face problems but we try our best to handle things efficiently,”
“Once the investigation unit is separated from the law and order unit, work would be much easier and investigation of cases would be done at a faster rate,” he added.
When asked about the strength of the police department at present, the district police chief said that there is a shortage in man-power especially in the traffic department.
“We have already sent a proposal to the state government in this regard and the same has been approved,” he informed.
Kharkrang also informed that the state government had already approved three additional traffic branches and the posts have also been sanctioned. “We are, however, awaiting the recruitment process to be completed,” Kharkrang said.