Crime rises during election years due to agitations by various groups: Rajasthan home minister

Rajasthan home minister Gulab Chand Kataria on Thursday said incidents of crime “increase during election years”, when “all type of demands and agitations from various groups suddenly increase”.

“Political parties also try to show their strength during elections, which is why the number of cases of crime increases,” the minister said while addressing the media at the monthly crime review meeting at the police headquarters in Jaipur.

Kataria said the state witnessed a decline in crime rate in the last four years. Total crime has reduced by 13.4% as compared to 2013, while crime against women has reduced by 20.4% and against members of Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes by nearly 42%, he said.

Kataria, however, admitted that the state government has been unable to stop incidents of lynching completely.

“We are working under the directions of the court and we have directed the police superintendents of all districts to be alert and control incidents of lynching. We are trying our best to get positive results,” he said.

The Supreme Court had on July 17 ruled that “horrendous acts of mobocracy” cannot be allowed to overrun the law of the land and issued a slew of guidelines to deal with mob lynching and cow vigilantism, besides asking the Centre to consider enacting a new law to deal with such cases. The court had also asked the state governments to designate a police officer, not below the rank of superintendent, as nodal officer in each district.

Kataria said the budget of the state’s police department was increased to over Rs 24,000 crore during 2014-18. It was nearly Rs 13,000 crore during 2009-13. He also said that 5,000 missing children were rescued and united with their families by conducting special drives.

“Our government has formed three police constabularies. We have successfully conducted the examination for the recruitment of 13,900 constables and, for the first time, outsourced the process of training selected candidates to an agency.”

Kataria added that his government has successfully implemented its promise of promoting 6,000 constables to the post of head constables. “None of the officers will retire from the same post. We have promoted more than 20,000 officers on various posts from constable to the additional superintendent level. We have also promoted the officers who have performed well in various sports competitions.”

He also said that steps taken by his department have led to reduction in road accidents in the state.

When asked about the wife of IPS officer Pankaj Choudhary, Mukul, announcing to contest upcoming assembly elections against chief minister Vasundhara Raje from Jhalrapatan constituency, Kataria said, “It is the uniqueness of the democracy that anybody can fight elections from anywhere.”

(With PTI inputs)

First Published: Sep 28, 2018 01:17 IST