MP Police Needs More Officers in Field

PHQ Needs Less Officers

NK SINGH

The year was 1985. Great Britain was reeling under general strikes, mammoth rallies and street protests. United Kingdom seemed to be tottering towards its end. London seemed to be definitely one of the most chaotic places on the earth.

I happened to land there during that turbulent period at the invitation of BBC Television to write the commentary of a documentary on Bhopal gas disaster that they were producing. It was my first ever trip abroad and within a week I had the misfortune of getting robbed in the Shepherd’s Bush area that also housed the studio where I was working. I lost practically everything. Gone was all the money advanced to me by the BBC, my travel documents, including my passport.

I was in total despair and almost in tears. Where was the nearest police station? I did not know. The Argos store where I was robbed did little to help.

Given my experience in India, approaching the police and making rounds of the police station seemed to be a daunting task.

As it turned out, there was no need for me to make that trip to the police station!

My producer made a phone call to the police. And within 30 minutes a lady police officer was in the BBC studio to register my complaint. She promptly registered my complaint and issued me a receipt for it. After that I had to visit the police station, I think, only once for signing a paper and collecting a final report of the case.

Once the police gave me the report, I could get part of the money back from BBC, which had that amount insured. (It was the first time I learnt that cash could also be insured!) And, of course, the High Commission issued a new passport in no time, thanks to the little clout that I enjoyed at Bush House as Indian Express correspondent.

The Scotland Yard could not get my money back.

But dealing with them was a pleasure. Almost effortless.

That happened, as I pointed out at the outset, despite the trouble the London Metropolitan Police was bogged down with. It was definitely the most strenuous period for them since the end of the 2^nd World War. But their investigation work, their paper work, did not suffer.

They did not ask me to come again because they were dealing with a rally in the area that day. They did not ask me to wait for a couple of hours because the station in-charge had gone out to make “bandobust” for a visiting dignitary.

If this can happen in Scotland Yard, why cannot it happen in Madhya Pradesh?

The reason is simple.

Our police force is simply bogged down by fire fighting operation. Law and order is ---- and has to be ---- the first priority of the police. That is basic policing for you.

And then there is the penchant of our political class to be seen surrounded by the only symbol of authority that they understand --- the khaki. As a result, practically half our police force is engaged in making “bandobust” for any leader worth a tuppence.

The remaining members of the force, if any, are deployed for investigation work. Willy-nilly, investigation suffers because it has become the least of the priorities of the police.

Sloppy quality of investigation directly affects prosecution, resulting in criminals getting scot free. Conviction rate has been falling over the years. According to available figures, only 23 per cent of the accused get convicted at Sessions level. The criminals are free to commit crime again, creating a vicious circle.

Why that should be happening is anybody’s guess.

For one thing, the existing structure of the MP police is rather lopsided.  It is top heavy and bottom heavy. Visit the PHQ and you may come across scores of officers without any work. It has been a long-standing tradition in the MP police to post officers who underperform in the field as AIGs at the police headquarters.

MP’s police force is extremely weak at the middle level and heavily loaded in favour of constables and head constables. Constabulary constitutes almost 88 per cent of the total police force in MP, many of them being deployed for work like washings utensils and looking after pets and children and tending to gardens at the bungalows of senior officers.

The percentage of the Sub Inspectors, which is the main investigating agency, constitutes less than six per cent of the force. The result is that only a small number of investigating officers available are heavily overworked, affecting the quality of investigation. The cases personally investigated by the Station House Officers (SHO) or Town Inspectors (TI) do not exceed 25 per cent of the cases registered at police stations.

An immediate solution to the problem of sloppy investigation, and thereby increase the conviction rate, is total and clear bifurcation of investigation work and maintenance of law and order.

I was a member of the Police Reforms Committee, constituted by the Madhya Pradesh Government in 1994. It was headed by MC Trikha, a retired IPS officer known for his expertise in intelligence work and had as its member secretary Ashok Patel, a Padmashri and a highly decorated IPS officer renowned for his field work. I happened to be the only civilian, so to speak, member of that committee.

The committee toiled for close to six years and finally submitted its report, spread over 25 volumes and thousands of pages, to the Government in 2000. We took our work so seriously. Often I would take a rickety overnight train from New Delhi to Bhopal to attend the consultation meetings of the committee, taking time off my work with India Today which had me posted in the national capital by that time. As is the wont of the Government, those 25 volumes must be gathering dust somewhere in the graveyards of Ballav Bhavan, the state secretariat, and the MP Police Headquarters.

One of the crucial recommendations of our committee was total bifurcation of investigation work and law and order mechanism. The recommendation was based on experiences in several other States whose models we studied. It was one of those recommendations implementing which would not have caused any extra financial burden on the Government.

Of course, the Government also needs to restructure the police force, abolishing orderly system and increasing the number of SIs. The top-heavy and bottom heavy structure has to go. Are the mandarins up to reforming themselves?

Published in News In Depth Jan-Feb 2016

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