Cuttack, Jan. 8: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik today stressed on the need for “zero tolerance” towards crimes against women in the state. Naveen said these cases “must be dealt with firmly” and personally monitored by the superintendent of police in their respective districts. He expected the engagement of special public prosecutors, whenever required, to expedite cases.

Speaking at the valedictory function of the 58th Odisha Senior Police Officers’ Conference here, Naveen said his government had placed funds for construction of Reception Centre and Mahila Sishu Desk at 375 police stations to facilitate an integrated approach to crime against women and children.

“All the police stations of the state would be covered by the scheme in phases. I expect the reception centres to be adequately manned and the visitors and complainants coming to the police stations shown due courtesy and their grievances promptly attended to,” the chief minister said.

Naveen pointed out that there was general concern about the low conviction rate in the cases handled by the police and called for efforts “in every possible way” to bring improvement in the conviction rate.

He called upon the police to be sensitive to the victims of gender violence, and poor and weaker sections of the society who have no access to justice without the proactive attitude of the police.

The chief minister expressed satisfaction that there had been “progressive improvement” in containing left wing extremist activities — violence, organisational activity, recruitment and mass mobilization — in the state.

“The activities of left wing extremists have been brought under control except in the districts of Malkangiri, Koraput, Nuapada, Rayagada, Nabarangpur, Kalahandi, Kandhamal, Balangir and Bargarh. These districts should be in our focus to counter such activities,” Naveen said.

He added that his government had made funds available to create new infrastructure for the police to meet the challenging task of better crowd and traffic management during Nabakalebar in Puri this year.

Speaking at the same programme, chief secretary Gokul Chandra Pati said the government was taking steps to speed up the recruitment process to fill vacancies in police department taking into consideration the requirement of extra police personnel for Nabakalebar.

DGP Sanjeev Marik said the state government had sanctioned 30 employees for control room and 20 special officers for the Puri Jagannath temple police station during Nabakalebar.

Senior police officers conference is an annual exercise at the state police headquarters to review, introspect, debate and discuss on professional police subjects by the police leadership with a view to come out with concrete action plan and strategies to handle current and emerging challenges in policing.

During the two-day conference in which over a hundred senior police officers attended, there were deliberations on professional police subjects such as left wing extremism, law and order situations, crime situations with emphasis on crime against women and children, improving the quality of investigation and prosecution, human rights related issues, protection of weaker sections, improving response at the police station level, community policing, successful implementation of mahila and sishu desk at police stations and grievance redress, among others.

The police superintendents of all districts, commandants of all armed police battalions, police range IGs, DIGs, IPS officers under training and senior officers of various police establishments as well as the home guards and fore services organisation, state vigilance, state police housing and welfare corporation, prison organisation, human rights cell and state transport authority took part in the conference.