Frustrating experience at Police Station

An Open Letter to the Police Chief

Some days ago there was an interesting and factual article in The Island about the inefficiency and indifference of our public service, and a few days ago I had an unbelievable and frustrating experience at the police station of a major city which I wish to bring to the attention of the IGP and the public at large.

I had left my car and driver in the evening by the road side close to the city’s main hospital. Finishing my task, I returned home in the car driven by my driver. The driver too had left the car for a while. On our return home, we noticed that one of the rear lights had been badly smashed, obviously being hit by another vehicle! The damage was not seen in the dark at the place the car was parked.

I immediately called the insurance agency and an agent turned up about two hours later, carried out the usual inspection, and also requested a police report on the accident for reimbursement of damage costs.

The following day we proceeded to the police station only in the late afternoon, as I had some urgent matters to attend in the morning. The police officer at the complaint recording desk informed us that as we had not reported the accident immediately, he cannot record our complaint without the approval of his boss, despite our telling him that we did not see the damage till we got back home. The ‘boss’ turned up about half an hour later, but on explaining matters, he instructed the officer to record the complaint. Actually, a police report is only a requirement for the insurance claim and on a simple vehicle damage of this sort on which a judgment/decision could easily be made by the insurance officer himself, should a police report really be necessary as getting one usually is a tedious process as evidenced below.

When we returned to the complaint recording base after meeting the ‘boss’, another policeman was already at the desk and was recording a complaint. It was 3.30 pm and he continued recording it and was had finished even at 5.30 pm! We had already waited for nearly 3 hours, and when we asked the officer who was to record our statement, he said it would take a further hour or so! As I had another engagement at 6 pm we decided to leave, explaining matters to the officer. He asked my driver to come next morning by 8.30 am. The simple issue is why can’t there be several record books so that the time of the complainants could be saved?

Be that as it may, the happenings of the following day when my driver went alone to make the complaint, it had been more awful! He had to wait for about an hour but the complaint was recorded just in about 15 minutes. However, the officer had to examine the damage and he had inquired where the car was. When told that it was parked about 200 metres away from the police station the officer was reluctant to go ‘all that far’, and the driver was asked to bring back a photo of it!

Then, to take a copy of the complaint, the record book had to be taken to another office, and an officer there was to issue it. A photocopy of the recording had to be taken but the police station, despite being the main station in the city, had no photocopier! So, the officer had to take the complaint book all the way to a private photocopy place! The whole process had again taken about five hours!

On another occasion some years ago, I visited the Kandy kachcheri over a small matter. At the counter there were three female officers, and they were happily munching away veralu fruit ignoring several villagers who were awaiting attention of the ladies! I was behind them in the queue and lost my temper at their attitude, walked up to the counter and asked them whether they came to office to partake of veralu. They were shaken and immediately got back to business!

Clearly, there is an urgent need for attitudinal change and streamlining and simplifying state administrative procedures.

All this reminds me of an oft talked about utterance of an old Tamil lady who did not appear to pronounce some words properly said about the happenings in Sri Lanka: “this is Giri Langa (Sri Lanka) the blunder of Asia”!!

Parakrama Waidyanatha