Undoubtedly, disturbed situation in the State has put extra burden on State police force. The burden is not only in terms of combating militancy and militancy related issues. It is multi-dimensional because militants are regularly exploring new methods of unleashing terror and perpetrating crime. Previously the one major task traditionally undertaken by the police was to maintain public law and order. But this has yielded its place to combating militancy or what is called proxy war. Evidently the type of militancy with which police have to combat demands that the police should have the latest technology and wherewithal if it is to succeed against well trained and well equipped militant groups. We know that militants move and operate in small groups of 3-5 persons, move by stealth, strike at vulnerable sites of which they make good survey before hand and having struck, they disappear and hid in the hideouts which again are not to be found out easily. Although they move in small groups but they are well connected and are updated regularly to make successful operations.
An important component of counter militancy operation is close, regular and brisk connectivity among police posts, police stations, police wings and senior officers on duty. Each police post and police station must know about the movements of miscreants in whatever region or district or tehsil they are. Police functionaries should be able to communicate among themselves and with the Police Headquarters within shortest possible time. This facility has to be provided not only to the police outfits in towns and urban areas but also in far-flung areas and especially the border villages through which infiltration takes place maximally. Timely communication can be useful in foiling infiltration attempts. It is with this purpose that the Jammu and Kashmir Police has introduced new telephony scheme Close User Group (CUG), covering the police organization from field level to the police headquarters. We think that this step should have been taken long ago and belated action has caused us much damage. The scheme has been devised after good deal of thinking and should go a long way in energizing police reaction in cases of emergency.
The scheme has some unique features as explained by the DGP. The numbers allotted to each police post/station/ senior office shall be permanent and will not change with the transfer of the officer. Obviously this system has been introduced to mitigate the difficulties of the people who cannot reach a police post or station or police officer easily because the numbers do not work normally. Under the new scheme, people will have the facility to talk to police stations/officers for unlimited time from any police post. The purpose of this facility is that there should be frequency of interaction between the people and the police. Such interaction can become more meaningful in situations of emergency. In short access to any police post or station or officer becomes easy for the people if and when they need police assistance. We hail this useful innovation in people-police connectivity in our state. We know that in the hilly State, access to remote areas is full of hassles. In particular, a situation of emergency can be highly embarrassing. But with the introduction of new scheme called CUG, hopefully this difficulty will be overcome.
But one thing we would like to impress upon police authorities is that the proposed scheme should be implemented without delay and it should not remain merely on paper. Secondly, functionality of the facility should be checked intermittently and no snag should be allowed to take place. This scheme is likely to prove effective in checking the movement of militants and in forestalling their disruptive and subversive plans.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel