CHENNAI: Better leadership provided under the AIADMK rule has rejuvenated the police force to perform with vigour and honesty, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa told the State Assembly here on Wednesday.Speaking during a debate on grants for the Home Department, a portfolio held by her, the CM said that thought the police had received many plaints of land grabbing during the DMK regime, their hands were tied.Now, the police have been given full freedom to act as per the law, she said. As a result, the anti-land grabbing cell formed under her regime had received 8,947 complaints. The police have arrested 419 land grabbers as of August 17 and property worth over Rs 415 crore had been restored to the rightful owners in the past three months, she said.“The truth that everybody should make a note of is that it was the same police functioning during the DMK regime and it is the same police functioning now. The CM has changed, everything has changed,” she pointed out.Stating that force did not decide its policy, guidelines or aims based on the desires of the ruling political class, but rather on the basis of the constitutional guidelines and stood for honesty and integrity, she said that she had given full freedom to the police under her leadership.But DMK president M Karunanidhi, who had been the Chief Minister for five terms, did not know an iota of law. He had spent all these years in the style of ‘Manohara,’ speaking dialogues and rhetoric. “That is why various power centres of the previous government didn’t allow the police to function independently,” she said. “We thought only 365 groups of the DMK family interfered with the functioning of the police, but even the domestic helps in their house also interfered,” she said.That’s the reason behind the former CM rejecting a recommendation of the Tamil Nadu Police Commission that politicians should desist from visiting the police station for the better performance of the force, she said. Instead, he passed a GO, “Not agreed to, as it is neither practical nor enforceable,” said Jayalalithaa, adding that the order stood as a confession statement that they could not stop the interference of DMK functionaries in the department.Replying to the points raised by various MLAs blaming the police for law and order issues during the discussion hour, she defended the police and urged all the elected representatives to respect them. As per the Indian Constitution, every citizen of the nation had rights, but it was not guaranteed for the police, she said.In defence of the force, Jayalalithaa also made an emotional appeal, “Like what poet Alfred Lord Tennyson said in ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, the police can’t reply or ask reason when they receive orders from their seniors, but just do and die.”
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