JOIN USFocus on your job: Bassi to CM
Delhi Police Commissioner Bhim Sain Bassi Tuesday took Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal head-on, suggesting he should to first put his own house in order over corruption and let police do their work.
The police chief’s advice for Kejriwal, perhaps the most strongly worded ever, came within hours of Kejriwal’s tweet citing a survey to call Delhi Police as “most corrupt” and once again nudging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to let the AAP government control the police.
“The six ministers in the AAP government are facing a tough time fighting corruption. So they have a lot of work to do. The government should
focus on its own work and let the police do theirs,” Bassi said in an interview to a TV channel.
The Police Commissioner also slammed the Delhi government’s proposal for setting up special police stations.
“Kejriwal should first try to do what is in the power of the Delhi government, like setting up creche for young mothers so that they don’t have to leave their toddlers all alone at home,” he added.
Bassi also advised Kejriwal to focus on self-defence training for girls and on improving social awareness of boys instead of demanding control of police.
Bassi further claimed that he had no knowledge about the parameters of the survey conducted by the Centre for Media Studies-India Corruption Study, but refrained from challenging its validity.
Challenge posed
“It has posed further challenge for us to eradicate corruption from Delhi Police,” the Police Commissioner said, while announcing a reward scheme for those who give leads on corruption in the force.
According to the survey, households in Delhi said police were the most corrupt out of all the public services in Delhi.
The percentage of households that reported paying bribe to police was 39 per cent, highest in all the services provided in Delhi, including those by the state government and the municipal corporations.
To tackle the menace, police on Tuesday announced a cash reward of Rs 25,000 to those who provide actionable evidence against any personnel involved in corrupt practices.
“We are starting a new scheme under which anyone who gives actionable audio or video evidence will be given a reward of Rs 25,000,” Bassi said. Evidence against civilians involved in corruption will get a reward of Rs 10,000.
Bassi’s remarks has left the ruling AAP fuming which said in a statement that he was acting like a spokesperson of a “frontal outfit” of the BJP government at the Centre.
It comes in the backdrop of incidents of two minors being raped in the capital last week.