Breather for cops

The State of Policing in India Report-2019, released in August last year, had highlighted that Punjab’s police force was number two (after that of Odisha) in the country in terms of highest average working hours per day, with almost half of the personnel spending more than 16 hours on duty daily. According to the report, based on a survey conducted in over 20 states, 42 per cent of Punjab’s cops did not get a weekly off, while 82 per cent admitted that the workload made it difficult for them to do their job well. In a move aimed at reducing work-related stress, the state police are set to initiate an eight-hour shift and a weekly off on a regular basis.

This relief, attributed to the rationalisation of workforce deployment, can help cops perform their duty more efficiently and lessen physical as well as mental fatigue. An overworked, tired policeman is least likely to do justice to his job. Longer duty hours — with little or no respite — lead to lapses that not only hamper crime control but also disturb the cops’ family life.

The Punjab Police have been striving for an image makeover for the past two decades or so, ever since militancy was rooted out from the state. In those dark times, the men in khaki were regularly accused of extra-judicial killings. In recent years, the 2015 Behbal Kalan firing incident, which claimed the lives of two anti-sacrilege protesters, showed the police in a poor light. Providing better working conditions to the personnel is a step towards ensuring that they deliver services to citizens in a more professional manner. It should be accompanied by greater public outreach through awareness campaigns. A major cause for concern, flagged by the policing report, is that merely 8.1 per cent of Punjab’s police personnel were provided in-service training from 2012 to 2016, way behind the neighbouring states of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Being a border state, Punjab needs well-trained cops at every level to curb the drug menace, gang wars, cybercrime etc. Let’s see how soon the situation improves on this front.

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