The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : YSR gives clean chit to police

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 21, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

YSR gives clean chit to police

By Our Staff Reporter

BHIMAVARAM, JAN. 20. The Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, on Thursday strongly defended the conduct of the police in the wake of a series of encounters across the State.

Dr. Reddy gave a clean chit to the police machinery at a press conference here on his last leg of the `Rajiv nagara baata' programme in West Godavari district. "Our forces are in fact doing model policing," he claimed.

On the Maoists' demand for punishing the policemen responsible for `fake' encounters, the Chief Minister asserted that enquiries by the Government with the police had revealed that none of the encounters that took place in the recent past was fake.

The police were exercising maximum restraint while dealing with extremists in line with government directives. They were not going deep into the forest in pursuit of naxalites. Their policing was limited to the fringe areas only, he said. The movement of extremists with weapons in plains was the main cause for encounters and a major irritant for establishing peace, he added.

Arms issue

Dr. Rajasekhara Reddy again utilised the occasion to make it clear that the government's stand that the naxalites give up arms was non-negotiable. Talks were part of a political process and maintenance of law and order was the sole responsibility of the Government. He, at the same time, expressed his government's resolve to engage naxalites in talks.

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