The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has blasted the Central government and Lieutenant Governor (LG) over the surge in crime in the national capital, saying that criminals have become fearless. AAP’s senior leader and Cabinet Minister in the Delhi Government Saurabh Bharadwaj asserts that the city’s law and order situation is worsening, with criminals brazenly committing crimes in front of CCTV cameras, showing no fear of the Delhi Police. The AAP leader criticized the Centre and the LG for failing to address the issue, highlighting their neglect and reducing the Delhi Police’s budget despite the rising threat.
Expressing concerns about the increasing criminal acts, Senior AAP leader and Cabinet Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj stated, “In the last few months, many such videos have surfaced and are going viral in which criminals are committing murders without any fear. These criminals have become so unrestrained in Delhi today that they do not hesitate to commit murders openly in front of CCTV cameras. Unfortunately, these incidents have become common now.”
The Senior AAP Leader mentioned that the Kejriwal government had installed CCTV cameras throughout Delhi to minimize crime, despite that we’re seeing how these criminals are not even scared of getting identified through these CCTV cameras. The fear of law and order is diminishing among these criminals. The biggest reason for this lack of fear is that the criminals know that somehow, they will escape from Delhi Police.
He shared, “There is a huge shortage of police personnel in Delhi Police, you can go to any police station and see for yourself. The police force that is there is also deployed for the security of VIPs. Every police station has the same story, whenever we talk to the SHOs of these police stations, they would say that we do not have constables and head constables, how can we deploy police for the beat?”
Saurabh Bharadwaj added that there was a time when every locality in Delhi used to have a beat constable and his patrolling sound could be heard regularly at night, but today this system has completely ended. RWAs are also hiring security guards from private agencies for their security and getting gates installed around colonies and societies.
“Delhi Police and Delhi’s law and order come directly under the jurisdiction of LG Vinai Kumar Saxena and the Central Government, but no work seems to be happening in that department. Far from recruiting more police force, the Central Government has further reduced the budget of Delhi Police (by 4.45% as compared to the 2023-2024 budget). This means that the Central Government neither has money for Delhi Police nor does it have any intention to strengthen Delhi Police,” he said.
The senior AAP leader stated, “Every week the Lieutenant Governor gives a long sermon on some issue or the other regarding the work of the elected government of Delhi but he does not pay attention to the work of his departments. The people of Delhi can tell how the DDA and Delhi Police, which are directly his and the Central Government’s departments, are their core subjects, are failing regularly. The work of both these departments is continuously deteriorating.”
“On one hand, there is DDA, against which a contempt case is going on that it ordered the felling of 1100 trees by deceiving the court. On the other hand, there is the Delhi Police under which the law-and-order situation has come to such a state that the people of Delhi are living in terror, their security is in the hands of God, and no one knows who will protect them,” Saurabh Bharadwaj concluded.
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