Assembly panel directs MSCW, SCPCR to work in coordination with police

Representatives of the three authorities were summoned by the Committee during its sitting here to seek a report into the recent gruesome murder of two children by their own father J Jana at Nongrah.

After the meeting, Chairperson of the Committee for Women Empowerment Ampareen Lyngdoh said the first realization that emerged from today’s summoning of the three important authorities was there is a lack of coordination between them.

She said there have been allegations and counter allegations of actual sequences of events of the occurrence of the heinous crime.

“(Therefore) we have asked the MSCW and MSCPCR to work in close coordination with the police department. We requested them to have a meeting at the earliest so that all these facts may be clearly understood by the public,” Lyngdoh said.

“Yes there has been a tendency for ignoring complaints of domestic violence and this is a very huge price to pay, very sad, very unfortunate, unacceptable but the crime has occurred. Henceforth, these apparent lapses should not occur,” she added.

Stating that the panel is not empowered to question the lapses, the East Shillong legislator however said, “We have commissions in the state of Meghalaya – the MSCW and SCPCR – with that kind of legal backing. So they will sit together with the police department, they will figure out what exactly happened, they will find out whether or not cases were filed, if cases were filed what exactly happened.”

She further informed that the panel was more or less satisfied with the report submitted by the police and said, “But we are going to follow up this case.”

Further, Lyngdoh said that the committee has given the three authorities 15 days’ time to comply with the direction.

“So we will wait for the meeting between the commissions and the police department and we will review the report as and when they are ready and they bring it to us but we have given them 15 days’ time,” she asserted.

When asked, Lyngdoh said, “The Assembly’s Committee on Women Empowerment is not authorized to observe a possible perception of a lapse. We cannot take sides in such a situation. However, we are asking for a step by step report so that if any lapses occurred, whoever was responsible for that lapse should be taken to task.”

Asserting the need for the police department to ensure adequate training is given to their personnel, she said it is a fact that even women personnel manning a police station likely themselves are not fully conversant with the Domestic Violence Act or POCSO or abduction or kidnapping or missing children.

“Also, we need to ensure that when some complaint has been made one need not wait for an FIR to be filed. Likely like these, there are so many other cases that have occurred,” she said while adding “We will have to ensure that all these missing gaps are attended to, police performing its duties more efficiently and we must ensure that henceforth these kinds of confusions or situations of confusion do not occur.”

Meanwhile, the Chairperson of the Committee on Women Empowerment said that the panel would also submit its report to the state government and office of the Assembly Speaker.

“We can ensure that our committee has played its role efficiently as we are not here to judge anyone, we are not here to take cognizance of an allegation, we are here to push systems in place to ensure that some clarity must be put in place so that this perception of insecurity does not expand itself and does not make women and children feel more vulnerable,” she maintained.

By Our Reporter