110614
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, [CHRI]-New Delhi &
Police Reforms Watch, Mumbai.
URGENT PRESS STATEMENT:
Re: Commonwealth Human Rights Initiaitive [CHRI ], New Delhi & Police Reforms
Watch [PRW], Mumbai demand that better policing for a safer Maharashtra is not
an option anymore. Citizens of Maharashtra will judge the Government and the
Politicians on this when they vote in this State elections.
.The UN recommends one police officer for every 450 citizens. Maharashtra has
a shortfall of 23,776 officers. Even if every sanctioned post were filled there
would still be only one officer for every 618 citizens. By contrast Delhi has
one officer for every 251 citizens.
Now we hear authoritatively that there that there are 10 police personnel
for each person designated a VIP in Maharashtra. 812 police personnel guard 84
VIPs. No doubt the orderly system of having subordinate policemen in the
exclusive service of seniors eats up another significant number. Can this be an
acceptable level of police planning?
Maharashtra has undertaken recruitment drives to add up to 14,000 officers but
if they are to join the bodyguards or the cadre of poorly trained Jeeves's,
additional man power may change very little.
Governments have a fundamental duty to keep people safe. But the crime graph
is growing all the while. Atrocities against Dalits are on the rise, with over
two thousand cases registered in 2013. Women are the victims of crime -
endlessly. The police are blamed but the distortions in recruitment manpower
and deployment mean that policemen on operational duties do double and triple
shifts without the necessary forensic or legal knowledge to win the war on the
streets. This is a unfair on both to the police and the public.
If, as the Supreme Court required, Maharashtra had a bipartisan independent
state security commission that made sure that police performed better and had
solid long and short term plans to make them fit for purpose with adequate
money, equipment, manpower, techniques, reasonable conditions of work all this
could be cured. The police deserve this.
Better policing for a safer Maharashtra is not an option any more. It is a
necessity. A beginning must be made. Politicians must show the political will
to create positive changes and not resist ideas that will make policing better
and more accountable. The people will judge them on this when they vote this
election.
Maja Daruwala
Dolphy Dsouza
Director
Convenor
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative POLICE
REFORMS WATCH
B-117, First Floor, Sarvodaya Enclave 43,
Kalina, Santacruz East
New Delhi, INDIA, 110017
Mumbai 400 029.
Tel No 91 11 43180205:4106 8605 (O) Tel:
09820226227
email: direc...@humanrightsinitiative.org Email:
policereformswa...@gmail.com
Email: maja.daruw...@gmail.com
website: www.humanrightsinitiative.org
