DIMAPUR, Feb 20 � Nagaland Police is planning to introduce Community Policing in full force to counter the rising crime graph in the city.
DGP O Alem insisted that the State police had particularly trained its guns on crimes in Dimapur because of the fact that the city tends to reflect the picture of the entire State.
During a three-hour-long meeting with the public at Town Hall Dimapur, the State police admitted that uniforms and guns alone cannot fully tackle the ever rising crimes. The need to implement Community Policing in Dimapur was stressed again and again by both the parties.
DIG, R/NAP, Kohima Toshitsungba, in his power point presentation, said the idea of Community Policing in Dimapur has both government and political approval while pointing out that the only thing it lacks is public will. He felt that the biggest factor behind the lack of public will was because it would mean putting armless civilians in line with insurgents as most law and order problems are insurgency related.
Home Commissioner J Alam also pointed out that the crux of the whole issue is people�s will. �The government is wholly behind the concept,� he declared.
Alam, however, made it clear that the initiative behind Saturday�s meeting goes beyond Community policing. It is more about public-police partnership in tackling crime, he maintained.
Reminding the civil society leaders that police job in a place like Dimapur is not an easy one, he said, �Policing effort anywhere is impossible without public support.�
The Home Commissioner also threw a word of caution to the civil society members on the dangers of civilians taking the law into their own hands or abusing the power of Community Policing.
�There will be chaos in place of peace if such cases happen,� he said while stressing on the need for both police and civil bodies to arrive at a clearly defined framework of Community Policing.
President of Naga Council Dimapur, Savi Leigise, lamented that even as Dimapur lay �weeping�, the civil society should share equal blame for the situation. �Are we doing our duty? It is not the job of police only but ours also to fight crime in our society,� he said.
Batting for Community Policing, Leigise maintained that the only way to curb crime is to cement fear of law by creating a system where all possible escape routes for criminals are jammed and thereby provoking second thoughts among the criminals. He pointed out that the Naga Council has been mooting Community Policing since 2010.
