Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah pulled up top cops of the state, for their shoddy response to the stampede in the city during the Royal Challengers Bangalore’s victory celebrations. He criticised the poor quality of investigation into the incident and also referred to the cops delaying information about the incident during the RCB celebrations.
Restore public confidence in law enforcement: CM tells cops
While speaking at a review meeting at the office of the director general of police in Bengaluru, CM Siddaramaiah issued stern warnings to the police department. He issued directions to the city police to restore public confidence in law enforcement.
Hindustan Times quoted the CM as saying, “Though the overall crime rate in the state is lower, the quality of police investigations has significantly declined. This must be improved immediately.”
Siddaramaiah also referred to other cases to drive home his point, regarding the dismal record of the police department. He talked about the delay in the arrest of the accused in the Bidar robbery case. He said that the robbery happened some 5 months back and the accused has also been identified. But, there have been no arrests yet. This, he said, was not acceptable.
Talking about the RCB stampede, the CM said that in his long political career, he had never seen such a riot inside Bengaluru. Pulling up the intelligence agencies he said, “Why do we even have an intelligence department if it cannot provide timely and accurate information.”
Talking about the stampede, the CM said that he was given wrong information regarding the deaths caused in the unfortunate incident. According to Siddaramaiah, even though the stampede happened at 3:50 pm, and 11 people were killed, when he asked about the deaths late in the evening, at around 5:45 pm that day, he was told that there had been just 1 death.
He said, “If senior officials had given me accurate information on time, I could have cancelled the stadium event. Isn’t this a clear failure?”
He said that it was difficult for him to suspend senior officials, but it was clearly their mistake. Hence, he added that this action (suspension) was needed. He also talked about delay in filing chargesheets in several cases and why the police were not taking suo motu action in hate speech cases.
The CM also announced plans to fill vacant posts in the police department soon. He urged police officers to act within the framework of the Constitution as all of them owed allegiance to it. He said, “Police performance is crucial for maintaining peace in society. Listening to the problems of citizens and responding to their suffering is a core responsibility of the police in a democracy.”
Apart from CM Siddaramaiah, state Home Minister G Parameshwara, chief secretary Shalini Rajneesh, additional chief secretary Anjum Parvez, home department ACS Gaurav Gupta and DGP Alok Mohan Salim were present in the meeting. Other senior officials from the Karnataka Police also attended the meeting.