The Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal showed the mirror to Congress Party with facts and figures of National Crime Record Bureau that declared Punjab the safest state in the country with negative crime rate during last five years and said that Punjab Congress unable to face the embarrassment of reality has ran away from the House on self made excuses. Concluding the two day long debate on Law and Order situation in the state, Mr. Badal said that perhaps it was the first instance that Treasury Bench itself have initiated a motion for having a thorough debate on Law and order issue and opposition benches were running scared of facing reality of hard and cold facts given by Union Government ruled by their own party. He said that I told the media that Congress would look for excuses to scuttle the debate as they never expected Government to be pro-active on debate issue. He said that Congress that only wanted to hog the space in the media by launching a campaign on half truths that law and order situation has deteriorated in Punjab just because of two unfortunate incidents and they never wanted a full-fledged debate on this issue. He said that I respect Mr. Sunil Kumar Jakhar as a seasoned and well read parliamentarian but after listening to his list less debate where he was beating around the bush only on two unfortunate incidents without coming out with even a single incident, I felt that Mr. Jakhar was also adopting the old strategy of Congress Party of repeating the half truths without any substance. He said that people of Punjab have summerly rejected the Congress Party for their repeated chants of 40000 cases of vendetta and not producing a list of even single case. He said that unfortunately Congress seemed to have not learnt a lesson from the clear lesson from electoral verdict and have again started the campaign of half truths.
Commending the Punjab Police for swift and effective action of arresting the accused within 7 hours, Mr. Badal said that his party has already expelled the accused from the Party besides expelling those two leaders also who recommended his name coupled with highest punishment of sacking of SHO whereas Amarinder during his rule was known for Clean Chit even in Gurchet Bhullar firing case or Manawala firing case showing the typical arrogance of insensitive Maharaja. He said that he was surprised that when police while stopping the protesting girl students in Ludhiana the dispot CM retorted ‘So What’ and warned that if they repeat (Protest), “we would deal with the same way”. He said that SAD-BJP Government has shown full sensitivity and was quite effective in dealing with Faridkot case also. Rebutting the charge of illegal vends levelled by Mr. Jakhar, Mr. Badal said that he does not believe in liquor mafia as done by Amarinder, who mortgaged the total liquor business of whole state to Ponty Chadha. He said that it was surprising that in a state like Punjab Revenue growth in liquor vend during Amarinder regime was meagre Rs 80 crore in 2002, Rs 31 crore in 2003, Rs 36 crore in 2004, Rs 71 crore in 2005 and the biggest surprise was it showed a decrease in 2006-07 of Rs 206 crore as Amarinder wanted to mint money for elections. He said that in comparison Punjab showed a increase of Rs 500 crore in first year, 300 crore in 2nd and 3rd year and 350 crore in 4th year and our revenue jump from Rs. 1400 crore in Amarinder’s regime to 3200 crore as we freed the liquor trade from the tentacles of liquor mafia of Amarinder. Similarly, he charged that Congress was giving protection to drug mafia making cosmetic recoveries despite Punjab being the Border state. Giving the figures Mr. Badal said that it was evident from the recoveries as from 2002 to 2006 during Amarinder regime there was meagre recovery of 111kg of heroin whereas due to effective campaign against drug mafia, we have recovered record 848kg from 2007 to 2011 and 259kg during first 11 months of current year. Similarly, recovery of other narcotics was 5 to 10 times more than Congress regime. He said that Congress was working in collusion with drug mafia was evident from the fact that recently we have arrested Congress Party incharge of Gidderbaha constituency with 5kg opium.
Ridiculing Congress Party for levelling the charge of highhandedness on Punjab Police, Mr. Badal said that he doesn’t believe in using Punjab Police as his private army as it was being done by Amarinder Singh, whether it was in SGPC election or DSGMC elections. He said that it was unfortunate that Captain levelled charges of narcotic smuggling on 80 year old lady to scuttle SGPC elections and implicated SAD workers with frivolous charges. He said that his family has gone through the trauma of Vendetta for five long years, where his mother and father were publicly humiliated and he was determined that he would not repeat the folly of Captain of dragging opposition party in Vendetta cases. He said that my first direction to Punjab Police was not to ensure that there was no false case, no vendetta case and every citizen should be ensured justice. He said that he was pained from two unfortunate incidents and these incidents should not be projected as breakdown of law and order situation in the state.
Rebutting the Congress lies with factual data supplied by National Crime Record Bureau, Mr. Badal said that for Law and Order there are certain indicators such as terrorism, communal harmony, naxal incidents, crime against women etc. On the front of terrorism during last five years, there were only seven causalities in Punjab, whereas in Congress ruled state Haryana it is 68 people lost their lives in bomb blasts, 55 in Andhra Pradesh, 66 in Rajasthan, 32 in Delhi, 107 in Assam and 214 in Maharashtra from 2007 to 2012. He said that we have pre-empted major terrorist strikes by busting various modules and timely arresting the terrorists. He said that we had been able to curtail the activities of naxals by arresting 10 persons including two major naxalities and registering 10 FIRs, whereas in one year alone there were 1755 incidents of Naxalite violence in the country where 68 civilians, 142 security personnel and 99 naxalities were killed.
Expressing satisfaction over the fact that Punjab has been declared the safest state in the country by the Union Government as far as rate of criminality was concerned, Mr. Badal said that Punjab was ranking 25th in the comparative record of 28 states as far incident rate of cognizable crime was concerned whereas Congress ruled state Kerala was most crime prone state with Pudducherry is 2nd crime prone state, Delhi was fourth and Haryana 8th. He said that Congress Party never wanted to face this data and has ran away to face the embarrassing truth. According to the comparison conducted by NCRB the crime rate in Punjab registered a negative growth of -4.8% from 2007 to 2011 whereas during Amarinder regime it registered a startling increase of 18.2%. Similarly, as per ranking of 88 cities done by NCRB, Amritsar registered a decrease of minus 1.4% crime rate from 2007 to 2011 against highest national increase in the crime of 39.1% registered during Amarinder’s regime. He said that similarly Ludhiana during our tenure registered a decreased of -20.7% against 10.9% increase in crime witnessed during Amarinder’s regime. He said that as far as Crime Against Women was concerned, Punjab ranked at 19th number whereas West Bengal was number 1, Congress ruled Andhra Pradesh on number 2, Rajasthan on number 4 and Haryana on number 14. Mr. Badal said that in Punjab with highest density of Scheduled Castes population there were only 90 incidents of crime against SCs against 4016 incidents in Andhra Pradesh, 7702 in Uttar Pradesh, 5182 in Rajasthan. Patting the Punjab Police for effective recovery of stolen goods during last five years, he said that Punjab Police has made recovery of 74.1% of stolen goods during 2011 highest in the country against meagre 49.4 % during Amarinder’s regime. He questioned that would Union Home Minister resign as there was only 4% recovery of goods in Delhi lowest in the Country. Quoting the study of latest Economic and Political Weekly, an economic magazine, in its issue dated December 8, 2012, where it has ranked Punjab tops ‘Best Performing States’ amongst 17 major states in India on the parameters of infrastructure, service delivery, social service delivery, fiscal performance, Law and Order, Judicial Service Delivery and Quality of Legislature. Mr. Badal said that after the certificate from Union Home Ministry and most independent international economic weekly, he does not require any endorsement from frustrated Congress leadership of Punjab.
Enlisting future plan for modernisation of Punjab Police, Mr. Badal said that he was introducing Rapid Rural Response system where 700 motorcycles have been provided to police and police would reach the spot within 20 minutes of incident. He also announced to cover all cities under CCTV surveillance system besides separating Law and Order and investigation duties. He also announced covering of all Police Stations with SAANJH Kendras with setting up of 363 more SAANJH Kendras. Terming the SAANJH Kendras as the success story of the decade, he said that record 13 lakh complaints were redressed in 1 year alone and 20 police services were delivered through these Kendras. Resolving to make Punjab Police as the Best Police Force in the Country, Mr. Badal said that the SAD-BJP Government had recruited 17783 male constables, 50 ASIs including 2902 women constables in five years against 1512 constables including zero women recruited by Amarinder Singh during his five year tenure. He said that he was envisioning Punjab Police as most professional police force with humane touch and humane touch in next two years. He said that he was focusing on scientific training of Punjab Police in cyber crime in their capacity building with most modern technological enhancements.Seeking setting up of 5 to 6 Fast Track Courts for expeditious trials of heinous crimes he said that he wants to set an example in the state by expeditious judgments in such cases to deter the hardcore criminals. Mr. Badal said that he has already set up a toll free number and website, where public can register their complaints directly to Deputy CM.Terming Punjab Congress as Biggest enemy of the state, Mr. Badal said that no opposition party in any state decries their states and it was only Punjab alone that Congress was bent upon scaring away investors by terming the state as pauper or raising the hue and cry of Law and Order situation. He said that people of Punjab have already slapped on their face as they have voted for development after tasting its fruit for five years and now Congress should remain prepared to sit in opposition for at least next 50 years.