Some of the criminals rounded up. (Source: Express photo) Some of the criminals rounded up. (Source: Express photo)

Ghaziabad police claimed to have arrested 295 people named in various cases — including 11 for murder, six for rape, 12 for loot, five for dacoity, 10 others carrying a reward of Rs 5,000 each on their heads and 14 facing charges under the Gangster Act — all within a span of 24 hours.

Police said the arrests were made in response to a drive by SSP Dharmendra Singh that focused on rounding up as many on-the-run criminals as possible in the span of a day — Sunday. The drive was announced in the form of a competition, in which it was announced that the DSP, SHO or chowki in-charge showing the maximum number of arrests would get monetary rewards.

CO (Border) Arvind Yadav was awarded Rs 10,000 while SHO (Loni) Gorakhnath Yadav was awarded Rs 7,000. The Loni police station, one of the stations supervised by Yadav, alone made over 50 arrests.

SSP Singh said the mass arrests were a result of preparations over the last 10 days. Almost the entire police force, including 4,000 constables, were involved, the officer said.

“We micromanaged the entire operation. The suspects were known. We gathered all the intelligence we had on them, gave the responsibility of the arrest of a suspect to the police officer best suited to nab him or her and just for a day, the entire police force had but one instruction — Ofocus on the criminals still absconding and arrest them. Of course, we make arrests daily, but the number was not going above 140, which is a result of officers being stretched in different directions. Four-thousand police personnel is not less, but to pull off an operation like this, you need single-minded and focused effort,” he said.

Another senior police officer said the force was capable of pulling off such arrests more often. “The attitude is, we will get them. What is the hurry? So the time-frame in which a job can be done gets stretched unnecessarily,” he said.

According to him, the initiative had certainly helped boost the morale of the force.

According to SSP Singh, efforts are being made to keep the force motivated, so that Sunday’s results could be replicated more often. “I am trying to interact on a personal level with even the junior-most officers as often as possible. I eat with them sometimes, or go and watch a movie with them. It helps to keep them motivated about their work,” he said.

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