The Communist Party of India (Marxist) ‘s alleged bid to bend the police to its political will by posting compliant and inefficient officers, many of them with a criminal track record, in key law and order posts emerged as a rancorous sore point between the ruling front and Opposition in the Assembly on Monday.
Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) walked out of the House after Speaker A. N. Shamsheer rejected the Opposition’s motion for an adjournment debate on the “politicisation and criminalisation” of the Kerala police under seven years of Left Democratic Front (LDF) rule.
Opposition’s charge
Opposition Leader V. D. Satheesan said acquiescence to CPI(M) satraps informed police postings. District Police Chiefs (DPC) and Station House Officers (SHO) answered to CPI(M) district and area secretaries, respectively. The party publicly hounded those few officers who broke the norm.
Mr. Satheesan said the CPI(M) district secretary in Kozhikode openly chided the DPC for daring to arrest DYFI workers accused of seriously injuring an ex-service person working as a security guard in a local hospital.
The criminalisation of the police was the causality of CPI(M) cell rule in police stations. He said officers who enjoy CPI(M) patronage tend to ignore their superiors.
‘Criminals in police’
For one, an officer accused of gang rape found himself heading a coastal police station in Kozhikode, despite cautionary reports filed by his seniors.
In Wayanad, an officer raped a child sex abuse victim. In Thiruvananthapuram, the police told of a woman who reported sexual assault by a stalker.
Mr. Satheesan said the police allowed a politically influential youth who assaulted a vagrant boy in Thalassery to go scot-free.
They were later constrained to arrest the offender after the visuals of the brutal assault went viral on social media.
Law enforcement had no empathy for citizens in distress. He alleged the police were corrupt, criminalised and existed only to serve their political masters. The government has sidelined meritorious officers.
‘Unsafe streets’
Congress legislator Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, who moved the adjournment motion, flagged the “police protection” accorded to persons who harassed a college girl in public in Kottayam.
He said road rage incidents were on an upward spiral. The police presence on the street, especially at night, was negligible. Police apathy has rendered public places unsafe for women and families.
Mr. Radhakrishnan said that, by a conservative police estimate, there were 14,000 active criminals in the State. The police rarely applied preventive detention provisions to incarcerate habitual offenders.
‘Damp squib’
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan termed the UDF’s motion a damp squib. The Opposition’s desperation to demonise and tarnish the police showed a severe scarcity of topics to assail the government.
He said that since 2016, the police had booked 826 law enforcers for breaking the law. The “bad apples” in the police department constituted merely a fraction of (1.56%) of the 55,000-strong force. The Opposition has done the police a disservice by tarnishing the department in its entirety.
They have forgotten the yeoman service rendered by the police during the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2018 floods.
No political interference
Mr. Vijayan said the government brooked no political interference in police functioning. It has declared zero tolerance for custodial torture or third-degree.
The government has decreed that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) would investigate custodial deaths in Kerala. The State police would have no role.
Mr. Vijayan said the Kerala Police has evolved as a mature and professional force under the LDF.
It has shown admirable tolerance in dealing with people’s protests, especially the Vizhinjam harbour agitation.
The State police were quick in solving cases and finding missing persons compared to their counterparts in other regions.
The Central government had flagged the high conviction rate in the State, especially in cases relating to crimes against women and children.
It also lauded the Kerala police’s diligent use of forensics to solve crimes.
