Hyderabad, December 31: CLAIMING that the law and order situation during the Telangana and Seemandhra agitations in the past one year was maintained effectively, directorgeneral of police K Aravinda Rao today said that there was no occasion when the police came under criticism from any quarters while handling the agitations as per law.
On the Naxalite front, he said that leftwing extremism was under effective check. ”CPI (Maoist) is active in a few places in the state bordering Chhattisgarh and Orissa. Other splinter groups like CPIML (Janashakti) and CPIML (Praja Pratighatana) have nominal presence in some Telangana districts,” he said.
To a query on whether the developing relationship between revolutionary poet Vara Vara Rao and separatists in Jammu and Kashmir, especially with Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was a matter of concern to the state police, the DGP refused to comment.
Giving the overall roundup of offences in the state in the year under review (2010), Aravinda Rao pointed out that 75 per cent of extremist violence was being reported from Vizag and Khammam. ”Tribal people from Orissa and Chhattisgarh are migrating to these places and are providing food and shelter to the extremists. Our forces and special teams are mostly on the borders, just like the Border Security Force (BSF),” he remarked.
Several top Maoist leaders including Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, Sakhamuri Appa Rao, Solipeta Kondal Reddy and Srikanth alias Tech Ramana were killed in encounters. In all, the police had 14 exchanges of fire with extremists resulting in the death of 13 extremists. Besides, 220 extremists were arrested and 117 surrendered while the police seized 81 weapons.
”In operations outside the state, the state police arrested important leaders of CPI Maoist including central committee member and politburo member Baccha Prasad Singh, and another central committee member Bansidhar Singh.
Statistics provided by the department show that there was an increase in crime against women by 0.49 per cent compared to the previous year while the number of road accidents slightly came down by 0.73 per cent. There are 55,511 cases which are under investigation while a little fewer than 3.30 lakh cases are pending trial in various courts.
The DGP commended the work done by the Counter Intelligence cell in arresting the most wanted jihadi Viqar Ahmed, Shaik Abdul Khaja, Mohammed ZiaulHaq, an alleged LashkareTayyaba militant, and the recent arrest of Swamy Asimanand, an accused in the Mecca Masjid blast case.
Cases of rape have gone up to 1,228 from 1,059 and of kidnap to 1,541 from 1,429. The number of murders too went up to 2,267 from 2,195 and the number of burglaries to 31,021 from 28,151 last year.
During the 11month period till November road accidents numbered 40,358 road accidents and the deaths 14,271 (14,799 last year). The number of persons injured was 52,444 this year as against 59,561 last year, the DGP said.
–Agencies