166 FIRs in SP offices, but no action against SHOs in Rajasthan
Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot had announced in May that FIRs could be registered in the SP’s office if local police stations refuse to file one and that action would be taken against the heads of such stations.
After the Thanagazi gang rape case in Alwar district, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot had announced that FIRs could directly be registered in the SP’s office if local police stations did not entertain complaints.
Gehlot had also said action would be taken against SHOs of police stations which did not entertain complaints. The direction came in the wake of delay in registering an FIR in the Thanagazi gang rape case in April.
The new system came into effect from June 1 and since then 166 FIRs have been lodged directly in the SP’s offices in the state but no action has been taken against any SHO so far.
Gehlot had said that FIRs registered in the SP’s offices would be sent to the local police station and it would have to revert to the SP with the FIR number within three hours.
He said each case where an FIR was not lodged in a police station should be inquired into and action should be taken against the police officials for not registering a case.
As per police data, there were 121 FIRs registered in June while the number fell to 45 in July. Churu saw the highest number of complaints at 20, followed by 14 each in Nagaur and Alwar. Sirohi and Kota City received 10 complaints each, as per the data.
There were three FIRs in Jaipur commissionerate and seven in Jodhpur commissionerate.
In July, Bikaner had the highest number of seven FIRs lodged, followed by Sikar and Nagaur with six FIRs each.
Rajasthan DGP Bhupendra Singh said the cases have to be examined by the respective SPs before any action could be taken. “In some cases, the victims could have directly gone to the SP office. In that case no action is made out against the officials.”
ADG (Crime) BL Soni said all the cases pending would be examined by the respective SPs before proceeding with further action.
He said departmental action under sections 16 and 17 of the service conduct rules would be taken against any official found guilty.
The direction for free registration of FIRs came after the gang rape of a Dalit woman by five men in front of her husband in Thanagazi area of Alwar district. They also made a video and circulated it on social media.
The victim’s husband later said that that while the incident occurred on April 29, the FIR was lodged on May 7. He claimed the Thanagazi police station asked them to come after the polling for the Lok Sabha elections.
The BJP alleged that the Congress had tried to suppress the incident to avert any impact in the elections. Rajasthan voted in two phases in the Lok Sabha polls on April 29 and May 6.
