Agencies
GUWAHATI, January 4
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he number of pending cases in police stations of Assam is increasing ever year though the state government has repeatedly talked about modernizing the system of policing and disposing of cases faster. Till the end of 2013, over 65,000 cases were pending investigation across the state’s police stations.
The shocking figure was declared in an official document which stated that Assam Police’s case disposal rate is one of the lowest in the country.“At least 66,179 cases are currently pending,” said a state government record. Till the end of 2012, the figure was around 57,000.
The record added that between January and November, 2013, state police recorded at least 22,906 cases and majority of them involve theft.
Despite trying to dispose them, 21 police stations of Guwahati are struggling to tackle the mammoth task. Earlier, every police station here was asked to spare extra hours to write reports of the pending cases.
“Till the end of 2013, city police had at least 21,865 pending cases at various police stations. Dispur police station alone has 7,903 cases, followed by Paltan Bazar PS which has 2,593 such cases,” added the record. Khetri PS has the lowest number at 69. The number of pending cases in the city police stations in the beginning of 2013 was 17,000.
Last year, state police discussed the matter with several Gauhati high court judges and top officials of the state home department who suggested a number of measures to improve the case disposal rate in the state.
“Besides acute shortage of manpower, many cases are pending due to technical problems like non-availability of witnesses or respondents. Many respondents are unreachable because they have changed their addresses. Therefore, a suggestion was proposed in which respondents would furnish contact details with the case diary,” said a senior police official who was present at the meeting.
According to the proposed regulation, police have to submit the contact details, including mobile numbers, home or office addresses and other details of every respondent in a separate slip along with other documents.
