Chidambaram stresses need for police force capacity building

KOCHI - Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday stressed the need for capacity building of the police force, and said adequate funds should be provided with matching technology to tackle the crime rate in the country.

“Deficiencies within the police force should be addressed first before taking up community policing. Community policing is an exercise in trust between equal partners and added that the fear and antagonism in the minds of the public for the police should be replaced with respect and fear of law,” said Chidambaram.

“It is not as if we cannot find 400,000 personnel. The reason is not far to see,” he added after inaugurating the three-day International conference on ‘Global Community Policing Conclave’ here, which is being attended by police personnel from 42 countries.

Chidambaram further reacting to reports that were 400,000 vacancies in all police stations in the country by March 2010, said that in many states the Finance Ministers are loathe to allocate funds to police and it is the residue which is allocated to the police.

“There is need to make up deficiencies in the police force. Unless we marry technology and police, the police personnel will remain far behind lawbreakers. There is so much intelligence information pouring in and there is need for analysing the same to keep pace with time,” he said, adding that unfortunately this area is neglected.

The Home Minister further said that in the name of Innovation, the concept of community policing should not be trivilaised, and added that there were good and bad examples of community policing.

Further cautioning the Community police personnel to be on guard against ’self styled’ leaders, Chidambaram said they should not abdicate their responsibility.

“Efforts to counter threats to national security by using Salwa Judum in Chattisgarh and Harmad Bahini in West Bengal are bad examples of community policing,” said Chidambaram giving examples and noted that it amounted to police abdicating its responsibility.

“The ‘Janamaitriyi Suraksha Project (JSEP) in Kerala and Delhi’s ‘Eyes and Ears’ were good examples of community policing which had helped in crushing crime rates,” he added asserting that the police cannot abdicate their responsibility for private militia. By Juhan Samuel (ANI)