Day after Manipur, Patil urges states to identify trouble areas

“It appears that there is a design to create such problems in the name of religion, language, caste and similar issues. We have asked all the state governments to identify the areas where such trouble might happen, identify the people that are likely to get involved in such things and try to prevent such incidents by anticipating them in advance,” he said.

Speaking on the shortage of police forces, the Home Minister said the strength of state police forces had not increased in proportion to their population. “For nearly 6.5 lakh villages in our country, we have only 14,000 police stations. And in some states, there are vacancies to the tune of 25-30 per cent in the police forces. This must be filled up,” he said, pointing out the difficulties in providing Central Reserve Forces every time violence breaks out in a region.

“In some areas, Central forces are permanently deployed for 15 years now. Clearly, there is a requirement of more state police forces. The states must look towards strengthening their police forces, at least fill up all the positions lying vacant,” he said.

He agreed with CPI(M) MP Brinda Karat’s observation that there seemed to be a concerted attempt by militant groups in different parts of the country to attack workers coming from outside their areas. “Such incidents are happening in the northeast. It is happening in the south, in the west and many other places,” he said.

Participating in the debate, Shahid Siddiqui of Samajwadi Party said the attacks in Manipur pointed to a dangerous trend. “Such attacks have been happening in Assam for the last couple of years, but Manipur was never affected with this problem. It means that this problem is spreading to new areas in the country and it is an extremely serious issue,” he said.