Modernised policing
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: February 04, 2014 -

After all those endless round of talks and more talks that have been feeding into the ears of the public through the media all these years, it appears that the wheels of police modernisation process has finally moved and it has arrived here in the State at last.

As we have stated through this column time and again, any police modernisation process should give high priority on imparting necessary training to enhance their professionalism and bring about attitudinal changes among the police personnel rather than procuring lethal weapons and equipping them with fighting gears, which could also turn on the innocent civilians thoughtlessly but unfailingly.

In this light, we feel that some of the initiatives that have been put forward by Mr Shahid Ahmed, since assuming the charge of Director General of Police (DGP) of Manipur on December 1 last year deserved to be applauded.

In addition to carrying on with the reformation process like police patrolling during night time first started by his predecessor MK Das, who retired as the chief of the State police department after an eventful but short stint of around 3 months in service on November 30 last year, the incumbent DGP has of late announced a slew of measures aim at bringing about a qualitative change in the functioning of the State Police Department.

These announcements, we hope, must have gone down well to the ears of the public as well.

Of all these measures, the step taken up for separating the work of investigation from the task of maintaining law and order by setting up a separate investigation wing of the Manipur Police to expedite the investigation process and the instruction given to the Commanding Officers of all the battalions of Manipur Rifles (MR) and Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) to train all their inactive personnel at the respective battalion quarters on daily basis are the ones that would surely go a long way in giving a truly modernised look to the State police department.

Its true that saddled with the law and order functions, the police have not been able to pay the kind of adequate attention that is necessary in crime investigation.

Taking into consideration of this fact, almost all police commissions as well as the Law Commission in the past have suggested separation of the investigation and the law & order wings of the police.

And, the Supreme Court had even passed a judgment in this regard as early as 2006.

But for scarcity of resources and manpower, most State Governments have been reluctant to implement the same despite understanding the need for splitting up the two police functions.

So, it is to credit of DGP Shahid Ahmed that the State would now have separate wings for investigation and law and order from February 15.

As for the instruction of mandatory training classes every day for the inactive MR and IRB personnel, all that we would like to say is similar training should also be prescribed for personnel in other units of the State police for a truly modernised force befitting its name.