Freedom of expression crucial for successful democracy, linked to good policing: Amit Shah

The home minister said ‘beat constable’ deployed at the lowest level of the police system makes the biggest contribution’ towards making a democracy successful by protecting the common citizen New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said the most important thing in a democracy is a citizen’s independence and freedom of expression which is directly linked to good policing and this needs to be continuously improved. He said ‘‘beat constable’’ deployed at the lowest level of the police system makes the “biggest contribution” towards making a democracy successful by protecting the common man. “Not because I am the home minister, but I have had this thinking since my childhood that to make democracy successful, the biggest contribution is of the beat constable,” he said. Addressing officers and personnel from various central, state and Union Territory police forces, Shah said the next decade is going to be very important from the point of internal security as the country under Prime Minister Narendra Modi was taking giant leaps in becoming a strong nation and economy, and we should “not think that some forces will try to stop this.” He added that as many as 3,700 armed cadres of various insurgent groups have surrendered with their weapons before the Union government in the last two years.