Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday wrote a letter to the Lieutenant Governor, Vinai Kumar Saxena, calling for urgent attention to “an alarming spurt” in serious crimes in the national capital with four murders in just over 24 hours.
The Delhi CM alleged that citizens were feeling unsafe and left with no alternative but to hire private security guards because police presence was visibly missing on the ground.
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Arvind Kejriwal has been claiming that the national capital would be a safer city if law and order came under the Delhi government instead of the Centre through the L-G.
His letter came after two women were shot dead by unidentified assailants in RK Puram in southwest Delhi on June 18 morning, while a 19-year-old student was stabbed to death outside Delhi University’s Aryabhatta College on Sunday.
“It is high time that those entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring the safety of lives of residents of Delhi should not be seen as failing time and again in their mandatory duty,” Kejriwal wrote, adding that he was willing to provide all possible cooperation in this regard including “a meaningful discussion” with the L-G along with his cabinet colleagues over the issue.
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Pointing to four murders in Delhi in the last 24 hours, the Aam Aadmi Party chief appealed to the L-G to initiate “urgent effective steps to restore the confidence in residents about the security and safety of their lives, since such serious crimes have shaken Delhi”.
Kejriwal expressed surprise that National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) records which stated that of the total crimes against women that took place in 19 metropolitan cities, Delhi alone accounted for 32.20 per cent of the total, had not served as an eye-opener in regards to the situation both for the the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the L-G.
“Given such alarming figures, urgent preventive steps on crimes against women were required, but unfortunately, for the reasons best known to the MHA and your good self, nothing changed on the ground,” he said.
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The need of the hour, the chief minister said, was to ensure effective police patrolling, particularly during night hours, and urgent engagement with the residents of Delhi on how to improve law and order.
“Thana-level committees existed in Delhi till 2013 which provided a platform for active and regular engagement between police, people and elected representatives. These committees may be revived,” he suggested.