Monday, March 4, 2013

Mt Hagen set for clean up


 
JOHNNY POIYA

A WEEK-LONG joint police and city authority operation would be conducted This week to rid Mt Hagen of street vendors, petty crimes and disorderly behaviour.
An awareness campaign on the operation began on last week Monday, cautioning those involved in this activities to stop or move out of the city.
 
Over the last two weeks, petty crime and disorderly behaviour in Mt Hagen has dropped as new Provincial Police Commander Martin Lakari beefed up police patrols in the city in a trial operation.
“We want to improve more on that by doing a major cleanup under a joint operation with the city authority to remove and ban selling of live pigs and other animals as well as betel nut and keep cheap Asian products inside the stores and not on the streets,” Mr Lakari said.
 
The PPC said strategic locations like the bus stops, main market and major shopping centres would be monitored by police personnels and everything would be banned as of next week.
Residents and the public has seen members of police personnels from all units conducting trial combine beats in these strategic areas as Mr Lakari makes his presence felt.
 
Piglets, cassowaries and other live animals, along with cheap Asian made products being sold openly on the streets have already vanished as sellers shift locations to much safer sites away from the main city centre.
Mr Lakari said street selling, alcohol, disorderly manner and petty crime had become the target and this was publicly displayed on Friday afternoon when a vehicle full of drunkards was chased down to the Pope’s Oval and cornered by five police vehicles and its occupants, some of whom were shouting in vulgar language at the public, were severely bashed up in front of over a thousand people – giving those presents, especially youths, something to think about.
 
The recent burning of a young mother suspected of sorcery and rise in petty crimes in the city has prompted PPC Lakari to tackle crime head on in the region’s biggest and densely populated centre.
Highlands Divisional Commander Teddy Tei said the operations in Mt Hagen would be executed in other towns in the region.
“Mt Hagen is the nerve centre of the region and we’re doing it here first and hopefully, do the same in other major centers in the region in a similar joint operation between town authorities and police,” ACP Tei said.
 

No comments:

Post a Comment