Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy told police personnel that ensuring law and order in the State should be given top priority in the current situation where new forms of ‘crimes’ are emerging out of malice against the government.
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Addressing the Police Commemoration Day event at the IGMC stadium here on Thursday, Mr. Reddy said with technology and changes in society the responsibilities of police have increased.
“Police are dealing with different kinds of issues from white-collar crimes to cyber crimes. Crime is taking new forms and troubling us from time to time,” he said.
“We have been witnessing one such new form of crime and criminals in the State for the last two-and-a-half years. We have seen what these people were doing. Just because they couldn’t win (elections) they vandalised idols and burnt chariots in temples. They created conflicts between castes and are not hesitant to create conflicts between religions. They moved courts and stopped the construction of houses for the poor. They even opposed English medium education to poor students,” he said indirectly referring to the tirade launched by the Telugu Desam Party(TDP) on drugs and other issues,” the chief minister said.
“Their channels and newspapers fuelled news and news debates with nothing but lies. They have even abused the Chief Minister, a constitutionally elected person, referring to his mother. Is it right to do such things? Is it right to abuse CM in such a way? By doing so they want CM’s followers to retaliate and cause disturbance to law and order in the State and in turn derive political mileage out of it,” Mr. Reddy said.
“Realising that they were not in a position to win any election, they resorted to tarnishing the image of Andhra Pradesh. They called it ‘Drugs AP’ by peddling lies as facts,” he said.
He further said, “they aren’t just targeting the government but also the people. This is an evil attempt to show our children as drug addicts to the world. Even the though Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Commissioner of Police, Vijayawada and DGP clarified on this issue (links to heroin smuggling with State) they continue their propaganda to tarnish the image of the State and spoil children’s future,” he said.
In such a situation, law and order should be given top priority and everyone should be treated equally before the law. Atrocities against women, children, senior citizens, backward classes should not be neglected and the accused should be brought to book, he said.
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Terrorism, anti-social elements and their activities should not be tolerated whoever the person is, the chief minister added.
Speaking about the sacrifices of the police personnel, Mr. Reddy said eleven policemen died in the State last year while on duty.
“To all those martyrs and families on behalf of me and the State, I express my solidarity,” he said.
“To ensure that the police get some rest and have time to spend with their families, the government introduced weekly offs. No other State took this initiative. Due to COVID we weren’t unable to implement it but we are resuming weekly offs from today,” Mr. Reddy added.
He also said the State government has increased the ex-gratia to kin of victims in the fight against COVID-19 to ₹10 lakh, and compassionate ground appointments will be completed by November 30.
