Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh’s acting police chief Rajkumar Vishwakarma Friday claimed that nexus between criminals and police at the local level helped many gangsters gain notoriety.
The acting director general of police, who is set to retire on May 31, also refuted the opposition parties’ allegation that the police were working in a partisan manner and taking action with an eye on the caste and religion of the criminals.
“We do not work like that. We absolutely do not spare criminals violating the law and making the public unhappy,” Vishwakarma told PTI.
The Samajwadi Party had recently come up with a list of alleged criminals and claimed that they were “still alive, committing crime and running gangs” as they all belong to the same caste as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
“All criminals who became gangsters gained strength due to their nexus with the local police. Without the cooperation of the police administration (at the local level), no criminal can make a mark in the initial stages,” the acting police chief said.
He also said that cybercrime was one of the biggest challenges before the force and security agencies could not move forward in the matter as much as they should have. “Cybercrime and traffic control are two such matters where the problem is ahead of the police. It is our effort that the police should be far ahead in eradicating both these problems effectively,” Vishwakarma said.
Although cyber police stations are now being opened, police personnel do not have proper training, the DGP said, accepting the shortcoming. He claimed police are working to arrest Guddu Muslim, an accused in the Umesh Pal murder case, and will get success very soon. Different units of the police trying to arrest the gangster, the acting DGP said.
Vishwakarma, a 1988 batch IPS officer was made the acting Director General of Uttar Pradesh Police on March 31. On April 13, Asad and his accomplice Ghulam, the two accused in the Umesh Pal murder case carrying a reward of five lakh each were killed in an encounter with the Special Task Force (STF) of the Uttar Pradesh Police in Jhansi. A few days later, Atiq Ahmad (60) and his brother Ashraf were shot dead at point-blank range by three men posing as journalists in the middle of a media interaction on Saturday night while police personnel were escorting them to a medical college in Prayagraj for a checkup. Vishwakarma refused to comment on the matter, only saying that a commission headed by a retired High Court judge was probing the matter.
—PTI