By IndiaTomorrow.net
New Delhi, May 10: Advocating for an urgent police reform in the country, activists and ex-bureaucrats in on Wednesday have released a detailed report on the policing in India.
Former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court Justice AP Shah, Former DGP and Indian Police Foundation Chairman Prakash Singh, Human Rights lawyer Warisha Farasat, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies Director Sanjay Kumar and Common Cause Director Vipul Mudgal have participated in the panel discussion on the occasion of releasing the report. Co-Director of Lokniti programme of CSDS, Professor Suhas Palshikar chaired the session.
Panelists stressed on police reforms and also said that police need a change of mindset. Fearing from gradual criminalization of police, they have argued that police should be given the functional autonomy must be saved from politicization.
The report, Status of Policing in India Report 2018, A Study of Performance and Perceptions”, covers 22 states of India and prepared by a joint efforts by Common Cause and Lokniti-CSDS.
Key Findings:
• 82% respondents did not report any contact with the police in the last 4-5 years.
• Of all those who reported police contact, 67 % contacted the police, whereas only 17% were contacted by the police. Of this, Adivasis (23%) are most likely to be contacted by the police, followed by Muslims (21%), OBCs (17%), Dalits (16%) and upper castes (13%).
• The rich contacted by the police the most(74%) while police contacted the poor most (21%). Likelihood of police contacting the person is nearly twice as high amongst the poor (21%) as compare to rich (12%).
• 44% responded significant fear of the police/ torture in some form.
• Sikhs, mainly in Punjab, reported the highest levels of fear among religious communities, with 37% saying they were highly fearful of police (over double the national average).
• People are most likely to report class-based discrimination by the police (51%), followed by gender-based discrimination (30%), caste-based discrimination (26%) and religious discrimination by the police (19%).
• Thirty-eight percent respondents agreed that Dalits were falsely implicated in petty crimes, 28% agreed on false implication of Adivasis on charges of being Maoists, and 27% agreed on false implication of Muslims on terrorism related charges.
• When looking at the five-year average, only three out of 22 selected states have been able to meet the reserved quota for SCc (Punjab, Uttrakhand, Delhi). Only six states have been able to fulfil the reserved quota for STs (Bihar, HP, Karnataka, Nagaland, Telangana, Uttarakhand) and only nine states have been able to meet the reservation quota for OBCs (AP, Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Telangana, Uttarakhand). None of the states have been able to achieve the 33 percent benchmark for recruitment of women in police force.
Key findings of CAG audit reports:
• Shortage of staff quarters is a grave issue. In selected districts of Assam, the shortage proportion is 99%, in Bihar 80% and 88% in Himachal Pradesh.
• 48 of 50 women police personnel in MP cited problem of inconvenience (non-availability of proper toilets, seating, retiring and work spaces etc.).
• Under-utilisation of funds is a high as 71% in Bihar, 41% in UP and 32% in Assam signifying mismanagement of funds and lack of training infrastructure.
• UP surrendered over 80% of funds for training equipment due to inefficiency.
