'Notification in a week for recruiting 8,000 cops'

The State government will issue a notification within a week for recruitment of 8,000 police personnel, including 450 sub-inspectors.

Since panchayat elections are scheduled for February, delaying the notification now would mean it could be issued only after two months, Home Minister G Parameshwara told reporters here on Tuesday after holding a review meeting of the northern police range (comprising Belagavi, Vijayapura, Bagalkot, Gadag, Haveri and Dharwad districts).

The government will consider Article 371(J), which provides for reservation in government jobs and educational institutions for people from Hyderabad-Karnataka, in the recruitment of police personnel, he added. The minister clarified that the government hadn’t dropped any case registered against Pramod Muthalik, the chief of Hindu fringe group Sri Rama Sene. He said that in 2009, Muthalik had made a requisition for dropping the cases against him. Like in other similar cases, a committee is looking into the requisition and would present its recommendation to the government. The Cabinet would take the final call on the issue. As of now, the cases have not been dropped, he added.

Parameshwara criticised the remark made by BJP leader Pralhad Joshi in Parliament that the Karnataka government wasn’t providing adequate funds to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for hunting the killers of Kannada researcher M M Kalburgi. The minister said the government had taken up the case as a challenge and the CID had achieved more progress than the Maharashtra police who are investigating the killings of rationalists Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar.

 “We have definite leads on the killers (of Kalburgi) and expect the results shortly,” he said but refused to give further details.