Newly appointed Meghalaya DGP Idashisha Nongrang lists crime against women and children and drugs as her top priorities

DGP Idashisha Nongrang expressed concern over the increasing number of cases of crime against women and children especially the crime against women and said that she would adopt a fresh

Meghalaya’s first female Director General of Police (DGP), Idashisha Nongrang, who took charge on Monday, has listed a massive crackdown on drugs and combating crime against women and children as her top priorities.

Expressing concern about the rise in crime against women and children and in instances of drug abuse and drug trafficking, DGP Nongrang said that despite the efforts over the years, there has been no decline in such cases.

Maintaining that basic policing that is maintaining law and order, prevention and detection of crimes will continue to be her focus areas, Nongrang said, “We feel the trends are much more disturbing. For example, if we look at crime against women and children, especially the crime against women, we have seen despite the efforts we have been making over the years, there has been no decline; there has been in fact an increase.”

She said various organisations have been reached out at various levels including that of district and as well as the Thana level.

“We haven’t been able to have the kind of results that we have been hoping for. Therefore, I feel that we need to have a relook at how we will be going about it and may rethink and rework our approach towards tackling such issues,” the DGP added.

As the first female DGP of Meghalaya, she said she would try to use that perspective to ensure that women themselves feel much better and feel much safer and improve the accessibility.

DGP Nongrang said, “I don’t think the female DGP is any criteria or qualification for being DG, but as a female officer, as a woman, I feel very strongly that women have a very different perspective and I would try to use that perspective to ensure that women themselves feel much better and feel much safer and improve the accessibility, which I know there’s a lot of room for improvement on the accessibility of the police to the public.”

Asked about the main reason for the rise in crime against women, the DGP said that the force is studying the matter as some districts are improving but others are not.

When asked about intelligence, the DGP said, “When it comes to intelligence, we always feel the lesser the better so I would not like to comment on how we go about collecting our intelligence but rest assured that intelligence is a focus area for us and without intelligence we will not really able to do our duties to the extent that we would like to.”

It may be mentioned here that according to Meghalaya Police statistics, crime against women has been on the rise since 2018.

From 287 cases in 2018, the number rose to 293 in 2019. In 2020, the number more than doubled to 606. It further rose to 685 in 2021 and 690 in 202

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