Police bashing

We publish in today’s issue of this newspaper two short contributions by retired policemen, one a letter to the editor and the other an article related to the department they had both long served. The matters they have focused on deserves both public reflection and governmental action. There is no doubt that corruption is deep-rooted in the police. This applies not only to our police force but also to forces elsewhere in the world. Denying this would be a blatant example of closing your eyes to reality. The article by retired Senior Superintendent Tassie Seneviratne, who began his career as a sub-inspector and retired from a senior gazetted rank, freely admits corruption in the force; nobody can deny that and denial has not been attempted. What is important is what is to be done about this problem that has long existed and grown exponentially as the years passed and both the population and size of the police grew.

Seneviratne says that there is no doubt that that the police has degenerated to abysmal depths and the reasons are not hard to find. It is not the police alone that is corrupt in our society. The disease is endemic throughout the government service and is worse in some departments than others; everybody knows this by personal experience. We are a majority Buddhist country and most of us parrot the five precepts – but how many of us truly observe them? This is also true of the Ten Commandments of Christianity. Both religions, and surely others as well, exhort their followers not to steal – do not take what is not given, Buddhism tells us, and ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal’ is a Christian commandment familiar to all whatever their religion.

The writer has headlined his contribution, which he says had input from a named retired DIG and we know from a former IGP, describing his former service as an institution that is most wanted and most despised by the people. Law and order is an essential requirement of life and the police is the enforcement agency. A major reason attributed to what the writer has called the “miserable lot of the police” today is the indiscriminate recruitment into the Police Reserve compelled by the war. As in the case of the military, the terrorism unleashed on this country by Prabhakaran – which rapidly deteriorated into a civil war – triggered heavy recruitment. This was done without due care and with little or no regard to qualifications and suitability mainly on political considerations. It wasn’t long before the Reserve, in terms of manpower, became as big as the regular force. Recruits without training received promotions “on their own standards,” Seneviratne says.

Then came the deluge. In 2006, the Special Police Reserve on the orders of the then President, was absorbed into the regular force in the ranks its members then held in the Reserve. This naturally created deep frustration in the regular police, especially in regard to seniority, which is the major consideration for promotion. Seneviratne says that the Reservists were not only totally unfit for the police but without proper training. They were untrained and undisciplined and some of them have risen to the ranks of ASP and SP. Even if absorbing of the Reservists to the regular force was a mistake, the bigger mistake was not giving them the required training even after induction. Today senior officials including the Defence Secretary, the Attorney General and cabinet ministers are heard berating the police for corruption and inefficiency. “Surely policemen are also human beings,” says Seneviratne, and there is no magic wand to wave and transform them into ideal police officers.

The question now is what senior officials, or for that matter the elected establishment and the National Police Commission created with great expectations, done to rectify the situation? Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa who, as the then president was responsible for the absorbing of the Special Police Reserve into the regular force, went on record recently saying at a public meeting that there was not enough recognition of politicians by the police. Seneviratne has interpreted this remark to mean that requests, sometimes orders, from politicians must be acted upon. He says that it is anybody’s guess whether such requests are lawful or not. As for the National Police Commission, the less said the better. It irretrievably recently tainted itself by backing special security measures including assignments of guards and drivers to retired IGPs and Senior DIG’s to keep in step with perks granted on retirement to senior military officers.

The letter to the editor from an officer who retired from the inspectorate takes umbrage at the likes of Karuna, once Eastern commander of the LTTE who defected, and KP who was a major fundraiser and custodian of Tiger loot, being allowed total freedom and high class lifestyles in post-war Sri Lanka; and there is barely a squeak about this from quarters that matter. Karuna, who recently set a cat among the canaries by claiming that he was responsible for the deaths of over a thousand soldiers at Elephant Pass, served as a deputy minister and was even a vice-president of the SLFP, is running for Parliament at the forthcoming election. The defense of those responsible for the special positions he enjoys today is that his defection from the LTTE was a major contribution for the defeat of the Tigers. Unsurprisingly, the requirement (or obligation) for policemen to salute him has turned many police stomachs.

Senior policemen, now retired, believe that overdue police reforms must be community driven. They cannot come from the government, the courts, the Attorney General or the National Police Commission. Public opinion, neither strident nor vocal, for change does exist. But who is going to bell the cat? The answer to that question does not appear to be forthcoming. Meanwhile the deterioration persists.