ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

PM asks for report on Bombay's law and order

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today said he has asked the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party government in Maharashtra to take immediate steps to curb rising incidents of crime in Bombay.

Taking time out of his busy schedule, the prime minister, during his one day visit, devoted time to discuss the deteriorating law and order situation in Bombay with Chief Minister Manohar Joshi and Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde who also belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

When contacted by reporters at Raj Bhavan, Vajpayee said both Joshi and Munde had assured him that effective measures were being taken to check crime in the city.

Madhukar Pichad and Chhagan Bhujbal, both from the Congress and leaders of Opposition in the state legislative assembly and legislative council, also called on Vajpayee at Raj Bhavan and pleaded for his personal intervention to arrest the deteriorating law and order situation in the state, especially in Bombay and surrounding areas which, they said, had touched its nadir.

Emerging from the meeting with the prime minister, Pichad and Bhujbal said they pointed out to him that the common man was reeling under terrible sense of insecurity and did not feel safe in Bombay where murders and extortion cases were on the rise and even doctors and restaurant owners were killed in broad daylight.

They drew the prime minister's attention to the fact that businessmen were feeling unsafe so much so they had begun to think in lines of shifting their businesses elsewhere from the city. This would destroy the metropolis and affect the economy of not only the state but of the entire country, they said.

They also brought to Vajpayee's notice the incident of a college girl, Jaybala Ashar, who lost both her legs in a case of mugging by a pickpocket in a local train, to focus his attention on the sense of insecurity that had gripped the public in the commercial capital of the country. Bhujbal said the prime minister said he had read about the incident in the newspapers and noted that it was very serious.

Bhujbal said the prime minister was aware of the law and order situation in Bombay and had told told them: '' Kuch to karna hoga (something has to be done).''

In a memorandum, the Opposition leaders alleged that ever since the alliance government came to power three years ago, political terrorism entered the city and political opponents and newspersons were being beaten up. They also alleged that the Shiv Sainiks indulged in extorting khandani (protection money), and extortion at gunpoint by criminals was also on the rise. They said gangwars, kidnapping, chain-snatching, shoot-outs were increasing phenomenally.

Encounters and use of firearms by criminals had become routine for Bombay, and the year 1998 was the worst in the crime history of the city. Giving statistics, they said in the nine months ending September, the city had recorded 277 murders, 66 dacoities, 224 cases of extortion, 95 shootouts and 650 cases of chain- snatching.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report