Thou shalt serve, not seek

11 policemen have been manning four pickets, without even minimal facilities, at Poonthura for several years

Policemen struggling to cope with the scorching sun and fuel fumes while regulating the toughest of traffic situations, and receiving severe body blows with stones and sticks while fighting rioters are the common sights of the tough side of policing one normally gets to see.

There are a few others too. Like the 11 policemen who for the last several years have been manning four police pickets in and around the communally sensitive island of Edayar under the Poonthura police station. They were posted there after communal riots became regular on the island. After a major clash around two years ago, they now have 24-hour shifts from 8 a.m. to 8 a.m., after which they hand over the picket to another team before moving onto the next picket. The 11 men thus manage the four pickets on rotation.

What is appalling is the condition of the pickets. While two of them, both near the Fathima Matha Church on the island, are just torn tarpaulin sheets tied to tree branches over two benches, the one near the Edayar Bridge has no cover, with the policemen, mostly from the Armed Reserve Camp and attached to the Poonthura station, standing in the sun most of the time. The fourth one at Poonthura Junction is just a bench on the partially covered narrow side-verandah of a shop.

None of the pickets have any facilities. No water, no latrines, and no proper shelter. Power supply to light the solitary bulb – in the two tarpaulin sheds – comes only around 8 p.m., that too in an area where one swipe of the hand can kill a dozen mosquitoes.

To address primary needs, the policemen have to go all the way to the Poonthura station.

“A request for a permanent structure was submitted to the government long back. But availability of land has been an issue,” says a senior police official. In Thiruvananthapuram, policemen, particularly those on special duty, being subjected to such misery is nothing new.

A similar picket on the Poovar beach, to avoid communal clashes, was abandoned by the policemen after it threatened to collapse on them any moment.

The living conditions of the policemen posted as security at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, where both men and women personnel have to stand long hours controlling devotees, are the same. Basic facilities, including toilet, are absent.

(Reporting by Dennis Marcus Mathew)