TURA: Garo Hills Police has initiated a special programme in which data would be prepared and compiled on suspects and those with criminal antecedents in the border areas to check the rising cases of cross-border crimes.
This programme of data compilation on criminals and suspects would help boost surveillance by police primarily in areas along the border belt where cases of abduction have been taking place.
South Garo Hills Police is one of the first to kick start this data collection in the light of recent events including the abduction of a father of a Catholic missionary from Rongara and the most recent kidnapping of a private medical practitioner from Chaipani-Dalu, Biplop Dhar, who was taken away by armed miscreants on July 8 from a weekly market at Dumnikura in the same district.
According to police sources, surveillance would not be confined to just the suspects and those with past criminal records, but would also include those characters with suspicious movement and the flying population of people who move from one village to another.
“Bangladeshi criminals are crossing over and committing crime because they are being guided by locals from inside Indian territory. We need to identify those people behind this. Once a suspect falls under the radar, his data is compiled and he remains under the watchful eyes of law enforcement officials till the investigation is over and he receives a clean chit,” said a police official involved with this project. There are worrying signs along the border belt over the frequency of kidnappings being committed by cross-border criminals who seldom fall under the security dragnet.
The Catholic missionary’s family had to pay a ransom for the safe release of their elderly parent while there has been no word from the group behind the abduction of the medical practitioner.
