A senior police officer said that it is high time for the police department to take measures for ensuring fitness of the policemen after hundreds of cops recently failed the physical test for constables and head-constables who had passed rankers’ examination for promotion to 304 vacant posts of sub-inspectors. Policemen need to be fit and possess multiple skills to tackle the new challenges they are facing now.
Critics opine that current scenario in the police department is such that policemen are overburdened with works and they are working additional hours leaving them with little time to spend on physical fitness or mental peace. Many policemen do have sophisticated arms but due to poor fitness, they may not be able to effectively handle these. Serving cops failing to meet the minimum standard of physical fitness could be endangering the public and themselves.
The poor fitness level of the cops could be the reason why a notorious criminal like Amit Malik ‘Bhura’ could be easily freed by his aides while being transported by the cops to the court on December 15 last year. In addition to this, several cases of jail inmates escaping from police custody while being taken outside the jails for various reasons are taking place more often in the state. Recently such an incident had occurred in Haridwar district.
On condition of anonymity a police officer said that periodic training is a must for the police personnel and they should go under refresher training once every one or two years. Apart from this, in the training modules, activities should be drafted in a way that ensures that policemen are mentally and physically fit. Sports should be included in the training module to ensure their fitness.
The policemen who remain posted in a particular department till they reach the age of retirement should be deputed to other departments of police for fixed period of three /four years to enhance their skills.
However, in the present scenario, the norm of revolving policemen from one department to another for enhancing their skills is not being applied here. The civil police are being deployed in vigilance or CB-CID departments depending upon the vacancy there. Armed police are normally deployed in traffic department. Armed or civil police may join State Disaster Response Force for three years. Such policemen may re-join SDRF till they reach the age of 45.
The State Director General of Police BS Sidhu said, “We are looking into all the aspects of fitness of policemen which will be included during their training to ensure cops are fit to execute the assigned work effectively.”