5000 policemen will be appointed this year: Karunanidhi

Chennai, Apr 26 (UNI) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today announced in the state assembly that 5,000 police personnel would be appointed this year to strengthen the police force in the state.

Replying to the debate on the demand for grants for the Police department, he said the government had last year issued orders to fill up 5,000 grade two constable posts and the process of appointing police personnel was on.

In addition to this, 5,000 more police personnel would be appointed during the year, which would take the total strength of police personnel in the state close to the one lakh mark.

The police strength which stood at 29,000 in 1962, grew to 66,856 in 1989, 96,340 in 2001, 98,897 in 2006 and 99,776 this year, the chief minister said.

In all, 14,000 grade two constable posts were lying vacant, he said adding while steps have been initiated to fill up 5,000 vacancies, 5,000 more vacancies would be filled up this year and the remaining 4,000 posts would be filled during 2008-09.

Claiming that the crime rate, including atrocities against women was coming down, Mr Karunanidhi said the crime detection rate and property recovery rates, on the otherhand, were increasing every year.

He said two types of ''modern crimes''- ''grill theft'' and ''bureau pulling'' posed a great challenge to the police, but thanks to relentless efforts, they had made breakthroughs by arresting the gang involved in the crimes.

After pursuing many leads, the police discovered the involvement of Bangladeshi nationals in grill thefts and arrested 14 people, including three women in Kolkata. The Police recovered from them 186 soverigns of gold jewellery, 400 gm of silver and Rs 43,000 in cash from the gang, which was involved in 66 cases, he added.

Similarly, the police put an end to the bureau pulling thefts by arresting a person and recovering 432 soverigns of gold jewellery, 650 gm of silver and Rs 51,000 cash from him. He was found to be involved in 69 bureau pulling cases, Mr Karunanidhi said.

UNI