SHILLONG, MAY 20: Newly-appointed Meghalaya Director General of Police (DGP) Idashisha Nongrang on Monday said intelligence would also be a focused area for her, even as she raises concern over the increasing number of cases of crime against women and Children especially the crime against women.
Despite the efforts that have been made over the years, there has been no decline, the DGP said.
Maintaining that basic policing that is maintaining law and order, prevention and detection of crimes will be the focussed area, Nongrang said, “We feel the trends are much more disturbing. For example if we look at the crime against women and Children, especially the crime against women, we have seen despite the efforts we have been making over the years, there has been no decline; there has been in fact an increase.”
She said various organisations have been reached out at various levels including that of District and as well as the Thana level.
“We haven’t been able to have the kind of results that we have been hoping for. Therefore, I feel that we need to have a relook at how we will be going about it and may rethink and rework our approach towards tackling such issues,” the DGP added.
Asked about the intelligence, she said, “When it comes to intelligence, we always feel the lesser the better so I would not like to comment on how we go about collecting our intelligence but rest assured that intelligence is a focus area for us and without intelligence we will not really able to do our duties to the extent that we would like to.”
The First female DGP of Meghalaya said she would try to use that perspective to ensure that women themselves feel much better and feel much safer and improve the accessibility.
Nongrang said, “I don’t think the female DGP is any criteria or qualification for being DGP…but as a female officer, as a woman, I feel very strongly that women have a very different perspective and I would try to use that perspective to ensure that women themselves feel much better and feel much safer and improve the accessibility, which I know there’s a lot of room for improvement on the accessibility of the police to the public.”
It may be mentioned that according to the Meghalaya Police statistics report, in 2022 alone the state recorded a staggering 690 cases of crimes against women, while 496 cases were against children. In 2018 there were 287 cases of crime against women which increased to 293 in 2019. In 2020, the number of cases more than doubled to 606, while the number further ascended to 685 in 2021.
Asked on the illegal coal mining, Nongrang said there have been numerous instructions from the government and there are instructions from the court while the police has been trying to control it.
“(But) here also it is a question of a large number of people in the society, the question of livelihood, so how best we balance the livelihood issue and the illegal part of it,” she said
In regards to the decision of the proscribed Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) to pull out of the peace talks, the DGP said, “Where the peace talks are concerned, it is a decision where the government has made very clear that they are very open to peace talks as the DGP of the state yes, we have seen HNLC we have faced them, yes, we have also seen peace talks with the ANVC, which ended in a tripartite agreement. We have also seen the problems of implementing that agreement. We have also dealt with GNLA and we did have any kind of peace talks with the GNLA and a number of other small groups – so where HNLC is concerned and peace talks are concerned, I think the right person to talk to would be the government in this case.”
Nongrang said, “On that, the demand notes of the HNLC, the HNLC themselves have come up with clarification that it is not them, that verification is going on whether it is actually them or an offshoot of somebody mimicking the HNLC. Investigation is going on, inquiries are going and I would like to leave it at that.”
She also emphasized that bringing misguided youth to the right path is not just the duty of the police.
“…police have to work together with society and other concerned groups and it should be a concerted effort and should be looking at having a synergy in ensuring that the youth are not misguided,” she added.