Spoiling the brats
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: March 13, 2013 -

Sometime in early part of the current year, it was reported that from the total amount of Rs 10,98,98,000 that had been sanctioned by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs for Manipur Police Modernization Scheme, an amount of Rs 1,12,96,684 has been marked for acquiring Tear Gas munitions in the first phase of implementing the scheme in the State , apart from another Rs 1,59,32,000 for purchasing AK 47 Rifles.

Now, it is learnt that under the Police Modernisation Scheme, MP5A3 submachine guns, the latest and most sophisticated weapons in the world today, have been inducted in State Police Department to equip its Police Commandos.

So, what is this Police Modernisation Scheme all about? The Scheme for Modernisation of State Police Forces (MPF), as it is called, has been hailed as a significant initiative of the Ministry of Home Affairs towards capacity building of the State Police Forces, especially for meeting the emerg¬ing challenges to internal security in the form of terrorism, naxalism, etc, by way of strengthening the police infrastructure at the cutting edge level.

Under the scheme, the States have been categorised into 'A' and 'B' categories with 100% and 75% central funding, respectively.

While Jammu & Kashmir and eight North Eastern States of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim have been classified as 'A' category States, the remaining 19 States fall in the 'B' category.

As we have been made to understand, the main objective of the scheme is to meet the identified deficiencies in various aspects of police administration and to reduce dependence of the State Governments on the Army and Central Police Forces in controlling internal security and law and order problem by way of equipping the State Police Forces adequately and imparting the required training.

No doubt, equipping police personnel adequately to face the multifarious challenges should not be neglected.

However, we feel that any Police Modernisation Scheme should be an area of high priority with more emphasis on necessary training to bring about attitudinal changes among the police personnel rather than procuring lethal weapons and fighting gears for them.

This would be especially true in a situation like Manipur where police personnel have been, time and again, charged with highhandedness and throwing their weight around.

Over the years, police-public relationship in Manipur has been far from being healthy and the sight of an approaching policeman or a police team creates panic in the hearts of the people instead of evoking that reassuring feeling of security in the presence of security personnel.

So, the moot question is, in the absence of complementary measures to make up for their behavioural deficiencies, how realistic it would be to expect our 'trigger-happy' policemen, specially the so-called Commandos, to behave phlegmatically when they are provided with sophisticated weapons like MP5A3 submachine guns that could fire out 800 bullets in one minute?

Hope, all these talks about police modernisation in Manipur does not turn out to be case of sparing the rod to spoil the brat.