Araria cops use arms of World War II period

FORBESGANJ: Araria, a hyper-sensitive district because of its being situated on the Indo-Nepal open border, is every now and then put on red alert by the state government. Still, the state government never thought of equipping the district administration with adequate infrastructure so as to take on the modern-day law-breakers. Ironically, while on one hand, the government was planning to open new police stations and police outposts to tackle the situation, on the other, the existing police stations lack even basic infrastructure.Not to speak of sophisticated arms, sniffer dogs, bomb-detecting device and metal detectors, the police of this border district do not possess even arms like 9 mm carbines and self-loading rifles, police sources said, adding that the criminals and smugglers, on the other hand, use arms like AK-56 and AK-47 rifles. "We still carry the arms of World War II period," a junior police officer said. Also, revolvers have not been provided to all the police officers of the district though it is, the sources said, a part of police uniform. "Policemen upto the rank of havildar should be given revolvers," the sources said. Incidentally, there are several vacancies in the district police. According to sources, there are only 325 constables as against the sanctioned strength of 466 in the district. Of them, more than thirty constables are engaged as bodyguards of the VIPs of the district. Further, of all the constables, 125 were untrained. Likewise, there are only 54 sub-inspectors against the sanctioned strength of 74 and 39 assistant sub-inspectors against the sanctioned strength of 50. Many of the police stations are in thatched houses. There are not even lock-ups (hajat) in some of the `thanas'' where the handcuffed culprits are tied to a table or chair or the window bars. Only a few of the police stations have telephone connections and wireless sets. "It is God''s grace that nothing serious occurs but the situation is really disgusting," said a senior police officer on the condition of anonymity. It may be mentioned here that on the Independence Day in 1999, the Forbesganj railway station received a hoax call that a bomb had been planted in the north cabin of the station. In absence of a bomb-detection device, all the trains were stopped at Forbesganj for several hours as every nook and corner of the station, cabins and tracks were searched manually. The rail movement was restored after eight hours when the DM and the SP themselves inspected the tracks from a railway engine.