Praising and criticising Uttar Pradesh police in the same breath, State Additional Director-General of Police (law and order) Anil Kumar Raturi said that the Uttarakhand police should follow the professionalism of their UP counterparts while they should be wary of violating human rights their UP counterparts are infamous for.
“Though police in UP are professional and the policing there is effective their being inclined to violate the human rights get them bad name. Our policing should be effective, but we should remain on our guard lest we indulge in human right violations,” he said while addressing the policemen during 11th state level police debate competition held at police line on Friday.
SP (Human rights), Police Headquarters Mukhtar Mohsin said that under the direction of National Human Rights, New Delhi, a police debate competition on ‘police can give new dimension to human rights’ was held in Dehradun.
The objective was to create awareness among the policemen about human rights rules and others through competitions. Policemen from various districts, PAC battalion and Range level had participated in the competition, he added.
In his address, Raturi shared his experiences as a police officer in undivided Uttar Pradesh and said that police of Uttar Pradesh though efficient have failed to build their image as the protectors of the people. However, by way of contrast, Uttarakhand police have managed to build a pro-people image, he said. He appealed to the policemen to execute their duty to keep up the confidence of the people about policing.
JS Pandey, (retired) DGP of Uttarakhand, IG (Human Rights) GN Goswami and Manmohan Kandwal, president of Bar Association were the members of the jury of the competition.
Additional SP MS Farswan, DSP Manoj Katyal and other police officers aside from the police personnel were present on the occasion.
Surendra Singh, head constable from Almora district, was declared the first followed by constable Jagveer Singh of Champawat district. Vinay Kumar from IRB-II and Kamlesh Bhatt from Nainital district were declared joint third. First, second and third winners were awarded with `3,000, `2,000 and `1,000 respectively along with citation letters.
While one view was that being the protector of human rights, police should follow the human rights norms strictly another was that the police should have their rights duly protected.