Editorial
Police reform is too important to brook delay
IGP's frustration is justified
The admission of the IGP that the police is a 'weak force' is only an authentic statement of fact. Come as the comments do, from the chief of a force that has as its major responsibility the maintenance of law and order and internal security, the frustration is understandable and justified. It underscores the need to effect police reform urgently.
The IG has brought out the major weakness insofar as it relates to performing one of its main tasks, that of investigation. It reconfirms, if ever reconfirmation was needed, the fact that because of this major lacuna many of the important cases have fallen through. This has been due mainly to the uncalled for political influence that was brought to bear on police work.
This brings us to the central question -- that of police reform. The proposed ordinance is lying with the home ministry since middle of June 2007, and a 32-member committee was formed sometime back, to 'review' the proposals. We fail to understand why the Draft Ordinance is gathering dust on the table of bureaucrats. We would like to echo the sentiments of the police chief that there is perhaps resistance from certain vested quarters that is standing in the way of the Draft Reform being approved by the caretaker government.
It is preposterous that an independent country that was freed from the shackles of colonial rule more than sixty years ago, and has existed as a sovereign nation for the last 37 years, has to depend on an archaic, antiquated and anachronistic set of colonial rules to run its police. The Police Act of 1861, enacted in the aftermath of the First War of Independence, was an instrument of the colonial powers to suppress dissent and crush any movement towards independence. It is ludicrous that it is being used even to this day as a coercive arm of the party in power, as an instrument to chastise political opponents and silence critics.
The political interference has been so blatant in the past that the police not only became the ruling party's handmaiden, its different agencies, particularly the investigation branch, were made dysfunctional to the extent that it also adversely affected our national security while serving petty party interest. The investigation of the 21 August bomb attack is a case in point.
In our assessment the proposed police ordinance is a fairly wholesome document, which is the product of extensive deliberations and exchange of views between the police and a wide cross-section of the people. It has provisions that will not only make police more accountable, it also makes undue interference in its function a punishable act.
There is a growing acknowledgement within the force for the need to change. Why should anyone stand in their way?
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