Revision as of 01:47, 10 June 2015

Vacancies: almost ¼th of all posts

Nearly 1/4th of 22L police posts vacant

Deeptiman.Tiwary @timesgroup.com New Delhi:

The Times of India Aug 18 2014

Battling crime, terrorism, communal violence and internal security threats, the country's police force is grappling with as many as 5.5 lakh vacancies in a total strength of around 22 lakh. Worst still, most of these vacancies are in areas plagued by insurgency or communal tension.

Gujarat has 40% vacancies in its police force while UP , which has been reeling under communal clashes in recent months, has more than 1 lakh vacancies, over 27% posts of its force. Chhattisgarh, racked by Maoist violence, has 30% vacancies.

States Facing Insurgency Or Communal Strife Worst Affected By Staff Crunch

Before the budget session drew to a close, Parliament discussed ways to stem communal violence in India. Leaders of various parties threw barbs at each other, but no one talked about one issue which is critical to tackle such situations -the strength of police force.

At a time when rising crime, terrorism and communal violence call for strengthening of security , government data pointed to a large number of posts lying vacant in police forces across the country . The vacancies account for nearly one-fourth (5.5 lakh) of the total sanctioned strength of over 22 lakh. Representation of minorities in the forces has been raised repeatedly . The home ministry's data show except BSF and Assam Rifles, all paramilitary forces such as CRPF, ITBP and CISF have less than 10% representation from the minorities.

Surprisingly, among the states with huge vacancies in police forces are those faced with insurgency or having a history of communal strife.

Gujarat, which is hailed as a model of development but has had a history of communal violence, is the worst performer with close to 40% vacancies in its police force. Uttar Pradesh, which has been reeling under communal clashes in recent months, has the highest number of vacancies at over 1 lakh, accounting for almost 20% of all vacancies in the country .

It has also the largest police force with a sanctioned strength of over 3.6 lakh. Chhattisgarh, which sees the highest incidence of Naxal violence, is also among the worst with 30% vacancies. West Bengal is another laggard with 35% vacancies.

The best performer, on the basis of sheer scale of operation, is Maharashtra, another communally sensitive state. With a sanctioned strength of over 2 lakh (next only to UP), it has only 7% vacancies. Assam also has done well with only 695 vacancies, accounting for barely 1% of the sanctioned strength.

Minority representation

Among paramilitary forces, while Assam Rifles has the highest representation of minorities at 16.16%, ITBP has the lowest at 6.18%. CRPF , deployed for controlling communal clashes, has 9.24% representation from minorities.

Police recruitment

The Times of India 2013/07/04

Undertrial can be MP, but not cop: SC

‘A Candidate Wishing To Join The Police Force Must Be Of Utmost Rectitude’

Dhananjay Mahapatra TNN

New Delhi: A person facing murder trial can contest elections, become an MP and even a minister in the Union government, but pendency of a criminal case will not entitle him to a job in the lowest rung of a police force.

This is the gist of the Supreme Court’s ruling, which set aside concurrent judgments of the Central Administrative Tribunal and the Delhi HC allowing a person, who was booked for rioting and assaulting but was acquitted after reaching a compromise with the victims, to join Delhi Police as constable.

A bench of Justice G S Singhvi and Justice Ranjana P Desai on Tuesday said, “A candidate wishing to join the police force must be a person of utmost rectitude. He must have impeccable character and integrity. A person having criminal antecedents will not fit in this category.”

Justice Desai added, “Even if he is acquitted or discharged in the criminal case, that acquittal or discharge order will have to be examined to see whether he has been completely exonerated in the case because even a possibility of his taking to a life of crime poses a threat to the discipline of the police force.”

Mehar Singh and his aides had assaulted a bus conductor in 2004 on being asked to purchase tickets. They also broke window panes and assaulted passengers who came to the conductor’s rescue. But the aggressors reached a compromise with the victims and were acquitted by a trial court in 2009, the year in which Delhi Police advertised for recruitment of constables.

Mehar Singh cleared the physical test, written exam and interview. But the screening committee, which examined his antecedents, did not recommend his appointment as constable.

Singh challenged it successfully before CAT after which Delhi Police’s appeal was rejected by the high court. But additional solicitor general Rakesh Khanna argued before the SC that the acquittal was not as honourable as was being projected. Accepting his argument, the bench said, “The police force is a disciplined force. It shoulders the great responsibility of maintaining law and order in society. People repose great faith and confidence in it. It must be worthy of that confidence.”

2004-13: police firing on civilians

2004-13: civilians killed or injured in police firing in India

The Times of India

Apr 09 2015

In the past ten years, police firing has caused over 2,500 civilian deaths in India while injuring over 4,000 people. The highest deaths were reported in Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. No firing deaths were reported in Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Sikkim and all the UTs except Delhi. In 2013, police firing was in most cases related to riot control (50.4%), anti-extremist and anti-terrorist operations (27.8%), against others (not classified18.1%) and anti-dacoit operations (3.6%).

Number of complaints and states: 2013

Number and rate of complaints and states; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India

The Times of India

May 12 2015

Deeptiman Tiwary

Visuals of a Delhi traffic cop hitting a woman with a brick may have shocked the city , but Delhi Police has for long carried the `bad boy' image, going by the government records. According to data compiled by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for 2013, Delhi Police topped the charts in “complaints against police“, accounting for 24.3% of all complaints across the country . It also has the highest rate of such complaints with every sixth policeman in the city having some complaint against him.

Delhi Police also have maximum human rights violations FIRs against them with 141 cases ( 79% of all such cases in the country).And as amplified by Monday's incident, maximum cases (23) are registered against the city police under the charge of “indignity to women“.

However, in a reflection of how seriously the police brass takes these complaints, Delhi also recorded the highest number of dismissals (103) of police personnel, accounting for over 18% of all dismissals in the country in 2013, followed by Jharkhand with 57 dismissals.

According to the data, total number of complaints, both non-cognizable and cognizable, reported to the au thorities against police personnel from various states and Union Territories in 2013 stood at 51,120. Of these, 12,427 (24.3%) were against Delhi Police personnel alone.This was followed by Madhya Pradesh which accounted for 18.1% (9,297) and Maharashtra with 14.2% (7,280).Curiously , Uttar Pradesh accounted for only 7.9%(4,086) of the total complaints.

The highest number of complaints per 100 policemen was also reported from Delhi (16.4) followed by Chandigarh (12.9) and Madhya Pradesh (11.1) against the national average of 3.0 during in 2013.

It must be noted though that over 52% of the complaints against police personnel across the country were found to be false.

In the case of more serious allegations such as extortion, false implication, indignity to women etc--which NCRB clubs under human rights violations and counts only FIRs-Delhi cuts a rather sorry figure. Of 178 such FIRs across the country , Delhi accounted for 141 (79.2%). As many as 23 of such FIRs are under the category of “indignity to women“ while nine are for “extortion“.

However, an NCRB official said that Delhi had high figures also because it is difficult to brush complaints under the carpet in the national capital and police brass ensures that genuine complaints are registered.