Need law for organised crime: DGP

Phillaur, Batting for the enactment of the Punjab Control of Organised Crime Act (PCOCA), Punjab DGP Suresh Arora today said this had become all the more imperative to deal with the prevailing law and order situation in the state.
He was addressing top police officers at the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Police Academy here.

Arora said the proposed legislation was a must as Punjab shared its borders with a hostile neighbour and had also to deal with terrorist attacks besides local gangs of criminals. “The biggest difficulty is finding witnesses to depose against gangsters. Owing to lack of evidence, a majority of them are released by courts.” The DGP said of the 195 cases involving gangsters, there had been convictions in only 10 and none at all after 2012.
Former Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal had proposed PCOCA too. The move has now been revived by the Capt Amarinder government.
As per the proposed Act, loosely based on the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), confessions before an SP-rank officer will be admissible as evidence, all electronic evidence will be “valid proof” for 10 years and an officer of the rank of DIG or above will be eligible to invoke PCOCA,.
On the attacks on Akali leaders, Arora said he had asked officers to ascertain if these were cases of political rivalry and resolve them.