BHOPAL: Veteran BJP legislator and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Babulal Gaur has advocated the introduction of a 'police commissionerate system' in major cities of the state to curb crimes against women.
This system will vest magisterial powers in senior IPS officers in big cities and help in taking effective and quick decisions in dealing with crimes, he said.
In the present system, such powers lie with district magistrates.
Under the current system, the district police chief is a senior superintendent of police (SSP)-rank official.
"There is a desperate need to introduce the police commissionerate system in Bhopal and Indore to check the growing crimes, especially against women," Gaur told PTI in an exclusive interview.
The police commissionerate system will come handy in swiftly dealing with criminals, the 87-year-old former state Home minister said.
"Under it, the inspectors general of police (IGs) and deputy inspectors general of police (DIGs) would be vested with the magisterial power," he said.
"It is easy to extern (keeping away from the district limits) hardcore and habitual criminals under the police commissionerate system," Gaur said.
Notably, the BJP-led state government has been facing criticism over the growing crimes against women.
The Congress has planned to take out a march from Raisen district to Bhopal on April 5, to demand that the government take steps to check the spurt in crimes against women in the state.
Right now, the government is seriously thinking about introducing the police commissionerate system in Bhopal and Indore, a government official said.
Asked about instances of the public parade of criminals by the police, Gaur said, "Criminals deserve such treatment. In this way, they can be straightened."
On March 25, the police had arrested and publicly paraded four men for allegedly raping a collegian in Bhopal, and several women bystanders had also slapped the accused.
Later, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan sought to justify such instances, asserting that "goondas" have no human rights and that the state government had zero tolerance for crimes against women.
Madhya Pradesh, having the fifth highest population in the country, was on top in the number of rape cases registered, among all states, in 2016.
There were 4,882 rape cases registered in the central state in 2016, out of the 38,947 across the country, as per the latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
As per the report, there were 2,479 cases of rape of minor girls in MP, followed by 2,310 in Maharashtra and 2,115 in Uttar Pradesh.
In 2015 too, Madhya Pradesh had recorded the highest number of rape cases (4,391) in the country, according to the NCRB.