mumbai: police commissioner m.n. singh on monday urged the government to make amendments to the code of criminal procedure (crpc) saying that it was high time grown-up children were made legally bound to look after their aging parents.
speaking at a function organised by the maharashtra state women's council on the occasion of world elders' day, mr singh also called upon the government to come to the rescue of senior citizens who have become soft targets of criminals.
``at present, section 125 of the crpc provides merely for maintenance which means food, shelter and clothing. but in a city like mumbai, economic compulsions compel grown-up children to leave their parents making them the soft targets of criminals,'' he said.
``in many western countries, the public exchequer spends money for the welfare of senior citizens. in india, we have some old-age homes and in some cases, they too are found to be run by some fraud elements,'' he said. ``here, even the national policy for protection of senior citizens formulated by the centre in 1999 has not percolated to the state level.''
urging the senior citizens to come forward and register themselves with the local police station, he lamented only 10,000 out of an estimated 10 lakh senior citizens had done so.
``every year, around 20 senior citizens are murdered and in most cases the motive is robbery and the killer is the domestic help or a relative. we have detected 13 of the 17 such murders last year which is a detection rate of 76 per cent. if people come forward to co-operate, we can be detect the rest. despite violence against senior citizens many housing societies had still not installed any kind of security gadgets, he said.
mukesh sharma, director, mumbai doordarshan, also made an impassioned speech asking the youth to go back to the age-old values of shravan kumar, the epic character, who carried his blind parents on a pilgrimage. ``the intrinsic value of an aged human being itself has decreased in these days of nuclear families,'' mr sharma lamented.
the youth today must realise that they should not leave their parents in old-age homes, added mr sharma. he urged mr singh and the ngos to organise a phone-in talk show on doordarshan for highlighting this appeal.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1144809577.cms
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