MHA may soon make photos, crime citations of corrupt cops’ public

Jammu: Taking a serious note of corruption cases allegedly rising in the police forces, the Union Home Ministry may soon take a call on publicizing photos and crime citations of corrupt cops at police stations across the country.
Top sources here said that the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, which is responsible for the country's internal security—has prepared a roadmap to expose the corrupt cops not only of lower ranks but also of IPS ranks and may soon issue orders regarding publicizing photos and crime citations of such officers.
The decision as per sources has been taken recently as a part of the government’s initiative of “police image and public connect”.
They further said that the decision is not to be limited only to the lower rank policemen, adding, “corrupt senior IPS officers’ photographs would also be prominently displayed at the police stations if charges of corruption against him are proved.”
As per reports, the Centre (MHA) has decided to put up the pictures of the corrupt police officers and personnel on the notice boards of the police stations along with the citation of their crime. “Further, the display would not be limited to the police stations only, the authorities will have to publish the action taken details on social media as well,” they added.
“All the police heads (DGsP) have stated that action against corrupt police officials be given due publicity on social media; photographs of corrupt police officials be displayed at police stations along with details on incidents in which they were involved,” sources added.
They added that the government has also directed that the police forces have to strengthen its internal vigilance unit to catch the corrupt ‘men in khaki’, adding, “the acute shortage of manpower, duty fatigue and desertions are leading to increasing instances of corruption among cops”.
“The government has also told all the police heads to form an in-house team to analyse social media content and also to increase police outreach,” sources said and added that the directives also stated, “Tweets and retweets, social media posts and discussions be scientifically analysed to understand perception and mood with specific reference to current/upcoming issues.”
The videos and pictures showing police sensitivity should be widely shared across all the social media platforms, the directives however, further added.
It was also pointed that “local language along with Hindi and English to be used to disseminate content on social media for maximum outreach”.
“Small uniformed police foot patrol teams are used to increase police visibility and pictures and videos of these be disseminated to improve the police image,” the directives read.
“As of now, no such directives have been officially circulated to the J&K Police but we have heard about such initiative by the MHA,” a police officer wishing not to be quoted said.
He however, said that this step will definitely bring down the corruption level and those earning bad name to the entire department can be put to task, adding, “it is a welcome decision rather. If the photos of criminals, fraudsters and others who are indulged in corrupt practices, can be displayed on the police station notice boards then why the same rule cannot be implemented for cops, who are more law bound.”

Updated On 11/20/2020 10:38:25 AM