VILLUPURAM: The recent beheading of Raghu alias Kandan (24) near Villupuram by a Puducherry gang goes to highlight the strain wrought on the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry police by inter-State gangsters.
The murder occurred despite the mechanism put in place by the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry police to launch joint operations against cross-border offenders.
Top police officers had met more than thrice to work out a joint strategy to bust the gangs. Police sources here reckon that the joint strategy has stood the police in good stead in booking rowdy elements and clamping down on bootleggers. But, some hardcore elements have a free run in Puducherry, and this, they say, is not possible without the connivance of personnel in the lower rank.
The Union Territory, the sources say, does not have a Goondas Act. Furthermore, the Puducherry police have to operate within a limited jurisdiction where there will be an undercurrent of power play. Hence, the personnel will be hamstrung to exercise their powers against the law breakers. Though this cannot be termed slackness on the part of the Puducherry police, the sources say, they have to act in a constricted environment. But, for the criminal elements, physical demarcation is immaterial, so the police on both the sides run into problems while dealing with them.
The sources say the Puducherry police have to work in an environment in which everyone will have a nodding acquaintance with others, and this blunts the sting of interrogation. Their Tamil Nadu counterparts, on the other hand, are operating in a much wider space. So, they can get tough with offenders. The different approach has, in fact, worked to the advantage of the gangsters who choose their territory to operate from. That is why tough measures are to be applied uniformly to neutralise the crime rate on the Tamil Nadu-Puducherry boundary.
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