Assam Government to Re-Employ Retired Police Officers to Investigate Pending Cases

GUWAHATI: 

The Assam government intends to re-hire retired police officers to investigate hundreds of open cases in the state police department.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced the move on Thursday, saying that the home department has been preparing to bring back retired sub inspectors to whose assistance will be of huge importance in order to solve large numbers of cases that are pending to this date. 

"We have deiced to bring back the retired sub inspectors ageing between 60-65 years to investigate the pending cases and charge-sheet them. There are some 4000 cases pending in Dispur police station alone which were registered against various organizations who staged dharnas. So, we need to clean pending cases first as a part of police modernization," stated Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma. 

Since May 2021, around 37906 cases have been pending in the Police Commissionerate in Guwahati alone. Dispur police station has the most outstanding cases, with almost 11,000 of them.

Aside from Dispur police, Paltan Bazar police and Jalukbari police had 4874 and 4000 outstanding cases, respectively.

The Assam chief minister further stated that the state government intends to establish a separate branch of the police force for the sole purpose of investigation, which will be different from the branch of police force that oversees the implementation of law and order. 

"Since police officials have to be busy in VIP and other law and order duties, investigation to cases remain on the backseat. Therefore there should be a separate investigation wing for speedy probe and justice mechanism," stated the Assam chief minister. 

Sarma went on to say that the state government was also going to provide all police officers 8-hour shifts so that they could do their jobs more effectively. 

In other developments, Harmeet Singh, the Additional DGP of Assam, has been appointed as the Police Commissioner of Guwahati. Harmeet Singh, an IPS (Indian Police Service) officer from the 1992 batch, has been appointed as the new Guwahati Police Commissioner.

Photo Courtesy - time8.in

Also Read - ADGP Harmeet Singh Appointed as Guwahati Police Commissioner

Also Watch