Bhubaneswar: With several news items coming to the fore about corruption, violence and misbehavior with the public by the state police department, the number of cases officially registered against policemen speaks volumes about the sorry state of affairs in the department.
In a clear hint of ‘all is not well’ with the department, the self admission of the police department now hints that many errant police officials ranging from the ranks of constables to Indian Police Service (IPS) cadres had been booked on the counts of bad behaviour and other charges.
According to an RTI reply from the office of the State Police Headquarters, Cuttack, since 2016-2017, a total of 868 complaints had been received against erring police officials from the rank of constables to Inspectors of Police who are mostly confined to their particular police stations and deal with the public directly, if not assigned any special assignment and wing.
Under this category, a total of 439 cases were registered against them while in 2017, a total of 429 such cases were registered. However despite being asked in the RTI to divulge on the types of cases registered against them, the department refrained from giving the details but gave only the figures that look staggering. Moreover, registration of cases against police officers, who are supposed to carry out law enforcement, also hints at the tainted character of many of these cops at the top echelons of the police department.
The same RTI reply from the department claimed that there had been 21 such complaints against top honchos of the police department in the same time period which included IPS officers, Odisha Police Service (OPS) and Odisha Armed Police Service (OAPS) officers. However, surprisingly when it comes to disciplinary actions, the department failed to act on time and justice seems to be delayed in many cases.
In their own admission, the state police department said that the total number of police officials in the state against whom disciplinary actions were taken for misbehavior with public in 2016 and 2017 stood at “zero”.
Some of the complaints and enquiry reports are said to have been submitted before the office of the Lokpal in the state. However, another reply from the department claimed that a total of 34 departmental proceedings had been started against accused police staff and seven of them were disposed of between 2016 and 2017.
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