False Proposition

In para 3 of the article, Gautam Navlakha assumes that “although the armed police is used for quelling riotous situations, these are for short period of deployment under magisterial supervision and are often unlike prolonged use to suppress insurgencies”. Actually armed battalions of paramilitary forces have been often deployed to fight insurgents (as in J&K), and these have been deployed for decades in continuation.

Quoting the union home secretary in para 2 of the article, the author says, “our police requirement today is roughly three and a half lakhs short”. This reference of the home secretary was to the existing vacancies of civil police personnel in states. The author admits that he is not clear “if the demand is for expansion of the civil police or for the armed police”. His conclusions are therefore erroneous as these are based on wrong assumptions. The United Nations recommendations of the average police-population ratio is a benchmark that is taken as a guide for ensuring better availability and visibility of the police across the country. There are vast tracts in many parts of the country which are under-policed, leading to poor enforcement of the law.