Police reforms only solution to check crimes

Activists and experts Tuesday called for immediate reforms in the basic police system and said that it was the only solution for redressing citizens' problems related to crime.

They said that reforms will also help in exclusion of outdated policies, laws and judicial loopholes. The reforms will also help in freeing the police from politicians and powerful people in society.

The experts emphasised that though the existence of the police department is to ensure the protection of the citizens, but people were hesitant and reluctant to approach the police for the redressal of their problems.

"This framework certainly raises the questions that if this groundwork holds true then why people hesitate to approach the police. Why for decades are people carrying on their adamant reactions relating to police," Mohini Giri, former chairperson, National Commission for Women said.

She was speaking at a discussion on peace and police accountability organised by the Guild for Service, an organization dedicated to the empowerment of marginalised women and children.

Giri said that there were several gaps between the responsibility of the policemen and the work they do, which needed to be filled.

According to the experts, while between 2012-13 there was a 10 percent increase in the IPC related crimes against citizens, crime against women saw an increase of 67 percent from 2012 till now.

Maja Daruwala, executive director of an international human rights organisation, said that "Though the Supreme Court in 2006 had directed all the police departments of the states and the union territories to implement the six directives it had stated, none of the states had taken it seriously and hardly made any efforts to implement it."

Daruwala said that had the directives - establishing a state security commission and setting up of the police establishment board to look in serious misconduct, rape and grievous hurt and death by policemen - been implemented, it would have brought reforms in the police department.

Kiran Kerpelman, Director, United Nations Information Center(UNIC) said: "Even the political parties in the country who have police reforms in their manifesto do not make any efforts for the police reforms after coming to power."

However disagreeing with the experts, Delhi Police Commissioner Bhim Sain Bassi, who was also a part of the discussion, said that the Delhi police department was functioning with proper transparency and accountability and did its duty with full responsibility.