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Madhya Pradesh govt to enact MCOCA-like law, BJP questions intention
The BJP said when the bill was introduced in Madhya Pradesh assembly, in 2010 the Congress staged a walkout.
After a year in power, Kamal Nath-led Congress government in Madhya Pradesh has decided to enact an act like Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). Interestingly, the party had opposed a similar law in 2010 when the then BJP government introduced it in the state assembly.
The MCOCA was enacted in Maharashtra in 1999 with an aim to combat organised crime and terrorism in the state.
On Friday, minister for law and legislative affairs in Madhya Pradesh PC Sharma said, “We will enact a new law on the line of MCOCA. We may take some points from the old draft but it will be entirely a new Act.”
Sharma’s statement came in the wake of Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s instructions to high ranking administrative and police officials from across the state in a meeting held in Bhopal on Thursday to work on the law like MCOCA, while cracking the whip on the mafia in the state, an official said.
The Chief Minister, said the officials, told them that he had been receiving information about activities of mafia from various parts of the state and that they needed to be shown their place.
The CM took out a piece of paper from his pocket and said he had names of the mafia in the list but he would not show it to them. Rather, he would wait for their action and check who of the mafia in his list was brought to the book.
Nath also gave reference of Jitu Soni, the tabloid owner in Indore presently on the run, without naming him as to how he had been receiving information about him from Indore and why the action was taken against him was badly needed, said another official who attended the meeting.
As per the chief minister’s instructions, it’s not only police officials but also administrative officials who will have their role in checking mafia’s activities in the state. The police officials will have to submit a monthly report to the divisional commissioners about its action against the mafia in their respective regions and the chief secretary and director general of police besides the chief minister himself will monitor the police action.
As per the official, though it would take some time to draft a bill on the new law and introduce the same in the state assembly, the categorisation of areas in which organised crime and mafia’s presence are seen has started in the right earnest. The areas identified so far include extortion, blackmailing, illicit liquor trade, selling and spreading network of drugs, grabbing government land and that of others, running a transport business illegally, developing illegal residential colonies and selling plots, duping people through chit fund companies, adulteration in food, illegal mining etc.
The BJP, meanwhile, has questioned the state government’s intention. Senior BJP leader Govind Maloo claimed that when the then BJP government introduced ‘Madhya Pradesh Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) and Control of Organised Crime Bill’ in the state assembly in March 2010 the Congress staged a walkout.
Later, when the bill was passed and sent to the Centre the then UPA government in which Kamal Nath was also a minister didn’t allow the bill to have the President’s assent, he said.
However, state Congress spokesperson Bhupendra Gupta said, “Congress in Madhya Pradesh is committed to uprooting the mafia who ran a parallel government during the BJP’s 15-year rule. The fact remains that BJP had never been serious in checking mafia’s activities in the state. Rather, it always patronised them, hence the bill brought by them years back was a sham.”
