A removed government hoarding Image Credit: Northeast Now

The election can’t be free and fair till there is possibility of any individual possessing a fire weapon and notorious criminals of the area moving freely under the sky.

Taking a serious note on it, the Election Commission of India has directed each and every district election authority to ensure deposit of all licensed fire weapons with the administration.

Similarly, authorities are to bring all the criminals having non-bailable court warrants (NBW) behind bars.

Superintendent of Police, Darrang, Amrit Bhuyan said, “We started executing pending cases of NBW since the last month. With the cases being pending since the year 2012-13, it was recorded as 329. However, we have executed around sixty percent of it in quiet a short time and now the number of cases left to be executed is 151. We still have another month in hand and we are hopeful about executing a majority of them”.

On the other hand, out of a total of 1, 137 licensed fire weapons at the individual levels, 1, 127 have already been deposited in the respective police stations.

“We have made appeal to the people possessing licensed fire arms to get their guns deposited at respective police stations and response has been very good. Except ten guns in the Kharupetia area, rest all have been deposited before us,” added Bhuyan.

In the meantime, the Darrang civil administration, since the day the model code of conduct (MCC) has come into effect, has removed 185 hoardings that had been put up in different government or public premises displaying photographs or slogans of ministers or any political parties.

The Revenue Circle level MCC monitoring cell led by the respective five circle officers of Mangaldoi election district have also removed 278 banners, 555 posters and erased nine wall writings in addition to the hoardings as informed by additional deputy commissioner of the district, Kalpana Deka.

Mayukh Goswami is Northeast Now Correspondent in Mangaldai. He can be reached at: [email protected]