Interior Ministry to match current situation, says Nurgaliyev

The work of the Russian Interior Ministry should match the current situation, believes Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev.

"Our efforts still do not fully correspond to the current criminal situation. The series of tragic terrorist attacks is yet another proof of that," he said at a session with senior criminal police officers of the Siberian and Ural federal districts.

The situation demands that work of all police and interior troops units should be organized differently, the minister pointed out.

"We have to admit, that today we do not always preserve the strategic director of criminal fight," he said.

"We can achieve real success only with systematic work, which should include a broad range of economic, political, legal and organizational measures," he emphasized.

The main goal of law-enforcement bodies is supremacy of citizens' rights and freedoms, as well as certainty of punishment as a key principal of the crime-fighting policy.

"People should be confident of their protection at home and in the street, this is our top priority," Nurgaliyev said. All this requires "modernization of the ministry's strategy and its structural departments".

The minister criticized the work of the Siberian and Ural criminal police.

"We have to have a separate discussion with each chief why large criminal groups continue functioning on your territories, why the number of burglaries and robberies continues growing, why people do not feel safe," he said.

According to him, the society is growing increasingly doubtful about assistance from law-enforcement bodies and certain of criminals' impunity.

Today only the organizing role of regional police departments can help to carry out systematic work to reverse the criminal situation in the country and to create a barrier against extremism, terrorism, drug trafficking and corruption, the minister pointed out.

On Tuesday Nurgaliyev made an unscheduled inspection of the 98th division of the ministry's interior troops, where he checked its combat readiness, held a meeting with its commanders and lay a wreath to a soldiers' monument. Then the minister left for a testing ground where he watched an exercise of police task force that trained hostage release in different conditions.