Delhi Police trivializing women`s safety issue: Delhi govt

The Sheila Dikshit govt has accused the city police of "completely deviating" from its core duties and "trivilising" the issue of safety of women.

New Delhi: In a fresh salvo, the Sheila Dikshit government in Delhi has accused the city police of "completely deviating" from its core duties and "trivilising" the issue of safety of women.

In a letter to Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, the government said that instead of focussing on improving law and order in the city, the police are much more interested in issues like unauthorised constructions and granting various licenses. "We would humbly like to request you to kindly look deep into the internal functioning of the police which currently has completely deviated from the core policing and is much more interested in issues like unauthorised constructions and licensing," the government said. It requested the Home Minister to ask the police "not to make an attempt to trivialise the issue of safety of women by shifting the blame to transport sector." In the wake of the December 16 gang-rape of a 23-year-old, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had been critical of functioning of the police and demanded the resignation of Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar. Keeping up her offensive against Delhi Police, Dikshit had last week said she was "glad" that Justice JS Verma Committee report had "vindicated" her stand on conduct of the force in the aftermath of the brutal gang-rape. In the letter to Shinde, Delhi government also questioned the functioning of the Traffic Police saying it hardly shares any information with the city`s Transport department. "Though Traffic Police is the main agency for enforcement of the Motor Vehicle Act and Rules, there is hardly any information shared by Traffic Police with the Transport department. "It is a very strange situation where the Traffic Police is enforcing the provision of the Act on behalf of the Transport department in view of certain powers delegated to it, but it reports to somebody else," the letter, a copy of which is with a news agency, said. PTI