CM hands over ex-gratia to relatives of policemen
NEWDELHI: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday turned down the demand of his party MLAS to exclude Delhi Police from the Delhi government’s ₹1 crore ex-gratia scheme and said the force was his family.
The chief minister was speaking at an event in Palam on Saturday, where he was handing over cheques of ₹1 crore to the families of Delhi Police constables Birendra Singh, who was on VIP route duty when an unknown vehicle hit him, and Deepak Kumar who was run over by a speeding truck during a late-night picket duty.
Earlier this week, after an attack on the CM in police presence, 21 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislators had requested Kejriwal to remove Delhi Police from the list of security agencies, wherein the next of kin would be entitled to a compensation of ₹1 crore in case the personnel die in the line of duty.
They had criticised the “attitude” of Delhi Police related to cases of attack on the chief minister.
At the event, Kejriwal said he had been attacked twice in the last one month, once when Signature Bridge was being inaugurated and the second time at the Delhi secretariat recently.
“These attacks angered our MLAS who demanded that Delhi Police should be removed from the scheme as they had failed to protect me from such miscreants. I do not agree with this. Delhi Police is like my family, it’s a part of my family. Delhi Police is not an individual, Delhi Police is not the name of a handful of officers, Delhi Police belongs to the people of Delhi,” a government statement quoted Kejriwal as saying.
He said he respect Delhi Police, specially the constables who put their lives at risk for the safety of citizens.
“There might be some senior officials who are politically motivated, but this doesn’t mean that the whole of Delhi Police is bad...” the statement also quoted the CM as saying.
Delhi’s transport minister Kailash Gehlot and AAP’S South Delhi Lok Sabha i n-charge Raghav Chadha was also present in the programme.
Under the policy, the Delhi government pays R 1 crore compensation to families of personnel of the armed forces, the police, fire services and paramilitary units who die in the line of duty in the national capital or elsewhere in the country.