Community Policing ... urgently needed to assist the cops.....concept will evolve for better policing in future

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Center explores Kerala model on 'community policing for students'

Vishwa Mohan,TNN | Apr 24, 2013, 08.02PM IST

NEW DELHI: Amid growing demand for involving local people in a day-to-day non-core police works, the Center has approved a proposal to increase the fund for 'community policing' from existing Rs 5 lakh per district per annum to Rs 10 lakh per district per annum. The token amount, given to the state, is basically meant for making citizens aware of their roles in assisting cops.

NEW DELHI: Besides, the home ministry is considering a proposal of the Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D) on 'Community Policing for Students', adopting 'Student Police Cadet' model of Kerala which is a school-based youth development initiative that trains high school students by inculcating in them respect for the law, discipline, civic sense, empathy for vulnerable sections of society and resistance to social evils.

The Kerala model, which is meant for all government, government-aided and private unaided schools, imparts training to students through various camps and classroom activities involving local police personnel who interact with them at regular intervals with instructions on certain dos and don'ts.

Community police officers, staff of supporting departments including traffic and drill instructors are involved in interactive training programmes in schools at least twice a week. Though the state government funds the 'Student Police Cadet' scheme in Kerala, private unaided schools meet expenses from their own resources.

Referring to the BPR&D proposal, the MoS for home affairs M Ramachandran on Tuesday said, "Its implementation (across the country) is subject to availability of funds, consent of state governments and acceptance of other agencies, that are proposed to be engaged in the project". The minister was responding to a Parliament Question on the issue of 'community policing' in Lok Sabha.

The concept of the community policing is aimed at associating citizens with the local police in solving neigbourhood problems in enforcing laws, preventing and detecting crimes, restoring order and peace in the area and reducing crimes against women and weaker sections.

Locating and reporting to the police about strangers and other persons of doubtful character, assisting local police in patrolling at night in crime prone areas, ensuring timely flow of crime related intelligence from the community to the police and ensuring communal harmony through collective efforts particularly during festivals, religious processions and public functions are some of the key functions of 'community policing'.

A home ministry official said, "The increased fund for the community policing is currently meant for 106 districts in disturbed areas which are covered under the Security Related Expenditure Scheme of the Center".

Other districts in both rural and urban areas are covered with funds provided by the state police. Expenditure under the SRE Scheme is first incurred by the states and thereafter reimbursed by the Centre. However, 25% advance of the approved annual work plan outlay is provided to the states in the beginning of the financial year for smooth implementation of the Scheme...........................http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JS1JLTy8yMDEzLzA0LzI1I0FyMDAxMDg=&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

Police Reforms ..... Politicians seem to prefer a system that is based on feudal mindsets

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Centre drags feet on ARC proposals on police reforms

Vishwa Mohan,TNN | Apr 21, 2013, 02.22AM IST

NEW DELHI: The Centre wants states to implement several suggestions of the second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) to improve policing and maintain public order, but it does not appear to take any initiative as many key recommendations on police reforms have been gathering dust for years.

The Union home ministry, which had on April 15 asked states to express their views on the ARC's suggestions, has not been successful in implementing even those recommendations that come under the Centre's domain, specifically in Union Territories (UTs), including the national Capital.

Even the Model Police Act - that provides for well-defined duties and responsibilities of the police and their sensitivity and responsiveness towards general public — could not become a law, leaving the UTs' police to function under an archaic law drafted by the British over 150 years ago.

Similarly, other suggestions, including abolition of orderly system in police, introduction of a system of District Attorney to guide investigation of crimes in districts and separation of investigation from other policing functions, outsourcing of non-core police functions, a comprehensive re-classification of offences to reduce burden of work for both courts and police, too have just been mere talking points during various conferences on police reforms or public order.

Retired IPS officer Prakash Singh said, "It seems the Centre has simply completed a formality in calling a meeting to discuss the five-year-old ARC's report. Had the ministry been serious about policing, it would have implemented all the police reforms measures suggested by the Supreme Court."

The apex court in its September, 2006 judgment had come out with seven key suggestions like prescribing minimum tenure of two years for state police chief and officers on operational duties, separating investigation and law & order functions of police and many other steps to insulate cops from political interference in their day-to-day duties.

Singh — on whose petition the SC had come out with its judgment in 2006 - said, "Sensing the lukewarm response of the Centre on police reform issues, states seem to have preferred to adopt a lacklustre approach with most of them failing to implement various measures".

Besides not bringing a new Police Act, the Centre is yet to set up a National Security Commission for selection of chiefs of central police organizations, including the seven paramilitary forces. The matter will come up before the Supreme Court on April 25 when the home ministry will have to explain the reasons for the delay in bringing adequate reforms.

Besides making police more responsive to citizens' concerns, these measures - suggested by the apex court — are aimed at infusing a sense of accountability among cops through adequate legislative measures and also by insulating them from any kind of interference.

So far, only 14 states have either enacted the new Police Act or amended their existing laws to incorporate suggestions of the SC. States that have not moved much in this direction include Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and West Bengal....................http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JS1JLTy8yMDEzLzA0LzIyI0FyMDA3MDE=&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

Boston to Bangalore: Pressure cookers are preferred by terrorists to assemble IEDs

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Explosive-laden cookers preferred to trigger blasts in India

Vishwa Mohan,TNN | Apr 18, 2013, 04.31AM IST

NEW DELHI: Use of pressure cooker by terrorists in Boston may be new for the US, but this commonplace kitchen utensil had been used by terror groups in India on several occasions in the past.

Pakistani spy agency ISI-backed terror outfits Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) had used pressure cookers as IEDs by packing it with explosive materials, timers, shrapnel and ball bearings for carrying out attacks in the bustling Sarojini Nagar market here in 2005.

Later, the LeT's proxy Indian Mujahideen (IM) had used pressure cookers to carry out attacks in a Varanasi temple and Mumbai trains in 2006. The Lashkar-IM combine had used seven pressure cookers for carrying out synchronized terror attacks in Mumbai suburban trains in 2006.

Terrorists use it because it causes pressure leading to huge explosion, depending on the quantity of explosives packed in it. Since it is an easily available item, terrorists prefer it over other strong metal containers to make IEDs.

The impact of explosion depends on the kind\quantity of explosive materials (ammonium nitrate or TNT or RDX) and other objects like nails or ball bearings or any other metallic items used inside the utensil. This kind of IED can be triggered by simple electronic components like digital watches and cellphones.

Besides India, other countries, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Algeria, too had reported use of pressure cooker by terrorists in making explosive devices. In most of the cases, it, however, showed hands of local terrorists who could have either acted on their own or with active support of foreign elements. In India, the IM continues to connive with LeT, which has over the years earned the reputation of an outfit present in many countries through its different front organizations.

Officials in security agencies here pointed out that since pressure cooker was often overlooked by police during any kind of search operation, terrorists found it easy to carry to spot without fear of detection.

They, however, at the same time pointed out that the use of pressure cooker could not just be restricted to terror groups like al-Qaida, LeT, HuJI or IM. One need not be a technical expert to make IEDs using pressure cookers. Anyone with ulterior motive can assemble it while looking up the methodology online, they added.

Politics over policing ... politicians want control over police

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Opposition chief ministers accuse Centre of interference in policing matters

Vishwa Mohan,TNN | Apr 16, 2013, 03.13AM IST

NEW DELHI: In what appeared to be a snub to the Centre over its suggestions on matters concerning 'law and order' which comes under the states' domain, most chief ministers - including from Congress-ruled states -- skipped the conference on 'public order' on Monday. The meeting was called to discuss ways and means to ensure better policing, crowd control, intelligence gathering, crime investigation and prosecution.

Though the states expressed their commitment to strive for better policing, the opposition-ruled ones accused the Centre of committing "excessive interference" in the states' affairs with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar even taking a dig at the UPA government, asking it to bring a constitutional amendment if it thought of curtailing powers of states.

Only seven chief ministers, including five from the northeast, attended the meet which was called to discuss finer points of policing as per the recommendations of the second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) on 'public order'. Other states, however, sent junior ministers or bureaucrats.

The chief ministers who attended the day-long meet included Naveen Patnaik (Odisha), Tarun Gogoi (Assam), Vijay Bahuguna (Uttarakhand), Manik Sarkar (Tripura), Nabam Tuki (Arunachal Pradesh), Mukul Sangma (Meghalaya) and Neiphiu Rio (Nagaland). Jharkhand, which is under President's rule, was represented by governor Syed Ahmed, while Delhi was represented by lieutenant governor Tejinder Khanna.

In fact, the number of chief ministers was less than the number of Union ministers present at the conference which was inaugurated by home minister Sushilkumar Shinde. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who usually attends the chief ministers' conference as chief guest, also skipped it this time.

The conference appeared to be so low in the priority of the chief ministers that one - Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal - even came to the venue at Vigyan Bhavan but did not attend it. He met Shinde at a small room adjacent to the conference hall and left after requesting him to grant clemency to Khalistani terrorist Devender Pal Singh Bhullar.

Almost all chief ministers of opposition-ruled states - whose speeches were read out by their representatives -- rejected certain recommendations including ones on issue of 'federal crimes' and idea of enabling the Centre to deploy its forces in a state during a law and order situation without requisition from the state government, saying such suggestions "seriously infringed" upon the states' powers.

They also pointed out that many suggestions of the five-year-old commission had become "outdated and impractical".

Shinde, however, tried to allay their apprehensions saying no recommendation of the ARC on policing and public order would be implemented without the chief ministers' consent.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who sent his written speech, said if some people or institutions thought that powers of an elected government needed to be curtailed vis-a-vis police reforms, they should rather press for a constitutional amendment to remove police and public order from the administrative control and legislative purview of states and give powers and responsibilities to the Union government.

He said states had continued to respect the prime role given to the Centre in these matters but excessive interference from the Centre in day-to-day governance was against the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha, in her speech, said, "I wish to once again underscore the fact that public order is a state subject under the Constitution and that the recommendations of the commission can at best be guidelines to facilitate better functioning. No attempt should be made to mandate or force the recommendations upon the state governments by the Union government."

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan also hit out at the UPA government saying despite law and order being a state subject, the Centre keeps sending impractical suggestions for changes in the institutional structure of the law and order and police -- either in the name of recommendations of the 'Commission on Centre-State relations' or in the name of establishing NCTC or sometimes in the name of proposal on the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill..........................http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDEzLzA0LzE2I0FyMDEwMDA=&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

Anti-government protests ..... a new challenge before cops

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Centre to discuss with states ways to handle flash protests

Vishwa Mohan,TNN | Apr 13, 2013, 04.06AM IST

NEW DELHI: As public protests, including the one at India Gate post-Nirbhaya gang-rape incident, continue to haunt the bureaucrats for their failure to handle such a situation, the Centre has planned to discuss with states the ways to handle agitating crowd and incidents of flash protests.

The issue will come up before the chief ministers during the day-long conference on public order on April 15.

"The issue of crowd control will be held in the backdrop of a number of public protests at India Gate post-December 16 incident and others like the ones at Ramlila Ground and Jantar Mantar during Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev's anti-corruption rallies in the past," said a senior home ministry official, admitting that the poor handling of such protests had attracted lot of attention within the government.

Discussions will be held on what kind of force would be deployed to control an agitating crowd, and methodology required to tackle an irate mob.

Measures to be taken to prevent/control riots, issues relating to police reforms, atrocities against SCs and STs, communal violence, abolition of orderly system in police forces, inter-agency coordination, intelligence gathering mechanism and over 100 others related matters concerning public order will also be discussed during the conference.

Though putting crowd control in the agenda of the meet is influenced by recent incidents, the other issues of interest are mainly lifted from the five-year old report of the second administrative reforms commission (ARC).

So far, only nine chief ministers have confirmed their participation in the conference. It includes CMs of Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Assam, Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh.

Infusing a sense of accountability among police through adequate legislative measures, insulating them from any kind of interference, abolition of orderly system, increasing representation of women in police at all levels (minimum 33%), registration of FIRs using citizen-friendly technology and setting up separate investigation and law and order wings in state police are some of the key recommendations of the ARC that are to be discussed in the conference.

The commission had also pitched for introducing a system of district attorney to guide investigation of crimes in districts and setting up Metropolitan Police Authorities in all cities, having population above one million, to plan and oversee community policing and improve police-citizen interface.

Though a number of such recommendations had attracted public attention in the past couple of years after the Supreme Court intervened in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) on police reforms, the majority of suggestions have been gathering dust in the files of states' secretariats.

Under the head - Empowering the Cutting Edge Functionaries - the ARC had in 2007 also suggested substituting the existing system of constabulary with recruitment of graduates at the level of assistant sub-inspector of police (ASI).

Setting up independent inspectorate of police to carry out performance audit of police stations, giving masked identity to informants who help in intelligence gathering and a comprehensive re-classification of offences to reduce burden of work for both courts and police are some other recommendations of the panel that will come up for discussion in the conference.........http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=Q0FQLzIwMTMvMDQvMTMjQXIwMTcwMA==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

Curious case of Bhullar and other Khalistani terrorists

http://t.co/42ChaWNGgH

Supreme Court verdict on Khalistani terrorist Bhullar is bad news for 16 on death row

Vishwa Mohan & Himanshi Dhawan,TNN | Apr 13, 2013, 02.20AM IST

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court's judgment on Devender Pal Singh Bhullar may not only adversely impact the 16 death row convicts whose mercy pleas have been rejected, but will also have a bearing on the cases of five others — Khalistani terrorist Balwant Singh Rajoana and four murderers — whose pleas are still pending before the government.

Now that delay in disposing of mercy petitions will not be taken as a ground to seek commutation of death penalty, the home ministry may not be in a tearing hurry to send the files of the five convicts to President Pranab Mukherjee.

Besides Rajoana, the Babbar Khalsa terrorist who was convicted for killing the then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in a suicide attack in December, 1997, the four others whose mercy pleas are pending before the government are Shivu, Jadeswamy and BA Umesh of Karnataka and Maganlal of Madhya Pradesh.


Rajoana's mercy plea — filed by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) last year — has been pending because his co-convict, Lakhwinder Singh, moved the Supreme Court for commutation of his death penalty.

Rajoana, who was a Punjab Police constable, had killed Beant Singh with the help of fellow cop Dilawar Singh and Babbar Khalsa terrorists Lakhwinder and Jagtar Singh Hawara in a suicide attack. Both Rajoana and Dilawar had prepared themselves as suicide bombers to carry out the attack. Police had during the probe found that it was Dilawar who eventually went to the site as human bomber based on a 'toss of coin', leaving Rajoana as the back-up bomber.

The pleas of the four murderers, however, are pending due to procedural reasons as the home ministry needs to get all the files examined legally before sending its recommendation to the President.

The President takes the final decision under the power given to him/her under Article 72 of the Constitution. Since the article does not prescribe any time-limit to dispose of the files, most mercy petitions remained pending with the President for many years in the past - giving death row convicts a ground to approach the Supreme Court for commutation of their death penalty.........http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDEzLzA0LzEzI0FyMDE3MDE=&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

Fate of death row convicts: Prez acts fast ..... a record of sort for Pranab Mukherjee

http://t.co/YEnjHJ770y

President Pranab Mukherjee rejects nine mercy pleas in nine months

Himanshi Dhawan & Vishwa Mohan,TNN | Apr 13, 2013, 02.56AM IST

NEW DELHI: President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected nine mercy petitions sentencing 14 convicts including one woman to death in nine months, making a rejection for every month of his tenure as President. This equals the 14 mercy petitions rejected by President Shankar Dayal Sharma in his five-year tenure.

This is in sharp contrast to Mukherjee's predecessors like KR Narayanan, who did not take up any case, APJ Abdul Kalam, who rejected one plea, and Pratibha Patil who rejected mercy petitions in three cases.

The trend for quick disposal of mercy petitions was set with 26/11 terrorist Ajmal Kasab's execution in November 2012 which was the first hanging after 2004 and marked a sharp departure in India's policy towards death penalty. President Kalam had sentenced rapist-killer Dhananjay Chatterjee to the gallows in 2004.

Mukherjee then rejected the mercy petitions of Saibanna Ningappa Natikar on January 4 and that of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru on February 3. He commuted the death sentence of Atbir, who was found guilty for murder of three relatives over a property dispute on November 15, 2012.

Between February and March 2013, Mukherjee rejected the mercy petitions of Veerappan aides Simon, Gnanaprakash, Madaiah and Bilavandran who killed 22 people by blasting a land mine, mass murderers including Suresh and Ramji, Gurmeet Singh and Jafar Ali.

Rapist-murderer Dharampal's mercy plea was rejected by the President besides that of Sonia and Sanjeev. Sonia, daughter of a former Haryana MLA, and her husband Sanjeev drugged and killed eight of her family in Hisar in 2001, including her parents.

A presidential pardon arises from Article 72 of the Constitution that empowers the President to pardon, grant reprieve or suspend, remit, commute sentence of a person convicted of any offence. The President is guided by the home minister and the council of ministers.

According to data accessed through RTI applications filed by activist S C Agrawal, Shankar Dayal Sharma rejected all 14 petitions before him while Narayanan received 10 petitions and did not dispose of any. Kalam inherited these petitions with another 16 added in his term. He disposed of only two — rejecting the mercy petition of Dhananjay Chatterjee, accused of raping and murdering a teenager and commuting the death sentence of Kheraj Ram.

Patil granted clemency to 34 convicts during her tenure while rejecting three pleas. These included the politically sensitive case of former PM Rajiv Gandhi's assassins Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan. She also rejected the mercy petition of Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, found guilty of killing nine bystanders in a 1993 car bombing intended to kill M S Bitta, and Mahendra Nath Das, accused of murder.

Serial No. Name of convict Mercy petition rejection by President Mukherjee
1. Ajmal Kasab 2012
2. Saibanna Natikar 2013
3. Afzal Guru 2013
4. Simon, Gnanaprakash, Madaiah, Bilavandran 2013
5. Suresh & Ramji 2013
6. Gurmeet Singh 2013
7. Jafar Ali 2013
8. Dharampal 2013
9. Sonia & Sanjeev 2013.........................http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDEzLzA0LzEzI0FyMDE3MDA=&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom