Tamil Nadu   

Transforming police force into a service

The colonial rulers used the police as a force to suppress the native community. But in the post-Independent era, it had been a five to six decade long journey for transforming the police into a service rather being misused as a force, Inspector-General of Police (North Zone), K. Radhakrishnan tells V.S. Palaniappan.

K. Radhakrishnan

The colonial rulers used the police as a force to suppress the native community. But in the post-Independent era, it had been a five to six decade-long effort for transforming the police into a service rather being misused as a force, Inspector-General of Police (North Zone), K. Radhakrishnan tells V.S. Palaniappan.

IN A highly civilised society, police could no longer be a force they need to transform into a service-oriented agency. Implementation of new school of thoughts will help in wiping out the image of being an enforcing agency. When there is little time for response or reaction, the Indian Police Service required being more proactive rather than being a reacting agency. A lot of concepts are being implemented in the Tamil Nadu Police to make the police more result oriented and vibrant, said K. Radhakrishnan, Inspector-General of Police (North Zone) who had won three international awards for innovating strategies.

In a country where the police: public ratio is just 1:780, it is pertinent that the police involved in ensuring peace and in combating crime. Besides getting closer to the community, the police should also involve the public in policing activities to tide over manpower constraints. With the population explosion resulting in growing geographical areas in townships, community policing would be an effective tool to combat crime and maintain law and order. Frequent interactions with the public would help the police in getting timely alerts on nefarious activities.

The police need to bridge the gap with the public to keep criminal, anti-social and extremist elements at bay. Getting closer with the community and establishing a rapport is must, if the police wanted the public to repose confidence, trust and faith in passing on information to pre-empt problems. A police officer should visit every locality and stay in touch with the public only such peace-time policing initiatives would help in resolving conflict situations in troubled times, K. Radhakrishnan said. But for the confident and fearless deposition of evidence by witnesses, the police would not be able to succeed in their cases, he pointed out.

These theories of Mr.Radhakrishnan, practiced by him on the field got him the prestigious and most coveted awards. He was conferred the prestigious "International Community Policing Award - 2002" by the International Associations of Chief's of Police (IACP) at Washington in the United States of America. The association has 140 member countries. The award was to recognize the contributions of police officers in translating the community policing philosophy into strategies. The award was for implementation of Area Committees (Neighbourhood Effort Solving Team - NEST), City Vigilance Committees - CVCs i.e., Police Action through Citizen's Team (PACT), Crime Prevention through Community Policing (CPCP-Slum adoption), women's helpline and partnership with students. He was first given the Queen's Award in 2002 of the United Kingdom on the topic "Web-based E-Training Programmes in dispute resolution, interviewing and record keeping for officers in all women police units in Tamil Nadu - A pilot project".

The second Queen's Award 2004 on "Communal Religious Relations Management for the police through community enlargement" was given for his efforts in restoration of peace in blasts ripped Coimbatore.

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