Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday that the previous government was not serious about building a memorial for policemen killed in line of duty, and he was “chosen by God to do the good work.”
He opened a revamped National Police Memorial and a museum in Chankayapuri here on Sunday.
Conceptualised in 1984, the earlier memorial, a 150-foot structure of steel, was brought down on the order of the Delhi High Court in 2008 because it violated environmental norms.
A long wait
Mr. Modi said the previous governments let the files on the matter gather dust. “I am proud of the new police memorial that is being dedicated to the nation today, but I have few questions to ask. Why could this memorial not come into being despite over 70 years of Independence? Why wait for so many years?”
The National Police Commemoration Day is observed on October 21 every year to pay homage to the 10 men of the Central Reserve Police Force killed in an ambush by Chinese troops in 1959 in Ladakh’s Hot Spring area.
Mr. Modi said the plan to have a National Police Memorial was conceptualised when Atal Behari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister and in 2002, the then Home Minister, L.K. Advani, laid the foundation. “I agree that work was stopped because of legal issues, but had the previous governments made honest and wholehearted efforts, this memorial could have been built much earlier,” he said.
He also urged the police to use technology in their day-to-day work so that the public did not have to go to police station for getting his complaint registered.
