Another sleepless night?

Another night, full of fear, hung over the villages of Bjelopolje, where the locals have been afraid for days of the armed Alija Balijagić, whom the police suspect of a double murder in the village of Sokolac in the Vraneška valley.

Even today’s extensive action by the police forces and elite units of the Army of Montenegro has not yet yielded results, although during the operation the search for Balijagić was narrowed down in the villages – Kanje, Orahovica, Kukulj, Sljepašnica, Kisjele vode, Gornji Sutivan…

This morning, members of the UP and VCG started in pursuit of Balijagić, who has been convicted multiple times, when they surrounded the villages in the border zone from Bijelo Polje to Serbia because several residents in the villages of Orahovica, Kanje and Kukulje reported that they allegedly saw the double murderer from Sokoc.

The locals, as they explained to the police, allegedly saw Balijagić in the orchard, meadow, barn, sliding towards the forest…

There is no confirmation from the authorities about the accuracy of those allegations, but Balijagić has not yet been located and arrested.

The police and VCG made a special ring around the villages, where Balijagić has a family house, and the border area towards Serbia, which the suspect of the crime knows more than well.

The MUP helicopter flew over the village for hours, and the aerial action was coordinated by the assistant director for the Special Purpose Police Sector, Miloš Rakonjac.

Today, the police extensively searched the village about 30 kilometers away from the Vraneška valley, where Balijagić is believed to have killed his brother and sister Jovan and Milenko last Friday in the Madžagalja family home in the hamlet of Sokolac near Tomaševo.

Since that day, Balijagić, who spent 32 years in prison, has been hiding from the police.

Who runs the operation?

After another day of unsuccessful search for Balijagić, the question of organization, leadership and coordination of the police-military operation is also raised.

Although the security sector is dealing with a dangerous, armed robber, suspected of double murder, the Police Directorate and the Army of Montenegro, according to information from Vijesta, did not even form a special operational headquarters in order to clearly know who is in command, issues orders, makes a strategy…

Although the Army of Montenegro joined the search operation for Balijagić, the day after the crime, interlocutors familiar with the issue claim that it is not clearly defined to whom the elite unit of the VCG is subordinated, nor are there clear rules of command between the police and military forces.

Since the joint operational headquarters in this operation has not been formed, the question is how and to whom reports are submitted for days, who analyzes the data and who specifically makes decisions on what to do so that Balijagić is finally arrested.

The action exposed the system

The crime in Sokolac from last Friday, according to the insiders, also exposed the security system, which showed vulnerability, numerous failures in the relationship between the police and the prosecutor’s office, but in terms of numbers – the material lack of preparation of the police force for such crisis situations.

At the end of September, the police and the prosecutor’s office had operative information but also suspicions, which were not supported by evidence, that Balijagić, a bandit with decades of prison experience, most likely stole two hunting rifles and a magazine full of ammunition from the house of VB in the village of Lješnica.

The police knew that since August Balijagić, who had just been released from prison, had been wandering around the villages of Bjelopolje, but they did not set out more decisively to find him, escort him, and take him into custody, even though they knew he had at least 32 years in prison.

If it is taken to be the correct information, which was announced by the police two days after the crime, that the locals allegedly reported Sokoc Balijagić only on the day of the double murder, the logical question arises as to why the police allowed the village around Tomasev’s zanocje that night without police protection.

The residents of Sokoc and the surrounding villages did not receive a warning that day that an armed prisoner was walking through the villages, and the question is whether anyone in the UP system is responsible for not having, even on that day, before the murder of Madžgalj, with its operatives, more decisively pursued a bandit of that caliber what Balijagić is like.

In the pursuit of Balijagić, the police and military forces are not helped by the configuration of the terrain, the vast forests in that part of Montenegro, but also by the fact that Balijagić knows almost every foot of the Bjelo Polje villages and border towns in Serbia…

Apart from that, the case best showed how much the police force and elite units are decimated by the lack of members, equipment – the police lack tents, sleeping bags (which is why the police officers sleep in Bjelopolje hotels), bulletproof vests, boots, equipment for staying in rural areas, and even and flashlights…

In contrast to the UP, the elite units of the Army of Montenegro have shown that they are many times better equipped materially, which has shown that much more has been invested in that system, through membership in NATO.

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