Reacting sharply to the State police’s proposal to open up regular police stations in eight areas presently under the jurisdiction of the revenue police, Uttarakhand Parvatiya Patwari/Revenue Police Class Employee Federation’s general secretary Shankar Dutt Kapri said on Saturday that it would be better if the State Government moved to hand over all the areas now under revenue police charge to the regular police.
Arguing that the State Government was least concerned for the revenue police despite the institution being an identity of the State, continuing since 1861, he said around 50 per cent posts of revenue police and 70 per cent posts of peons were lying vacant in the revenue police area. He also claimed that crores of rupees were sanctioned by the Central Government to modernise the State police force, however, regrettably enough, not even a fraction was being spent to revamp the crumbling infrastructure of the Revenue police. There was dire need to train the revenue police personnel and to provide the rudiments of infrastructure like vehicles and buildings, he said.
Kapri said the nature of crimes had changed with the onset of modern technology. Culprits committed crimes by using mobile phone and flee from the scene. Due to shortage of technology and lack of technical skill, revenue police found it difficult to deal with the fast-changing crime scenario. “We need four or five days to collect the evidence of crimes committed by the offenders and consequently, the criminals get enough time to flee to big cities,” he added.
Moreover, earlier, Pradhan and prominent persons of the society used to cooperate with revenue police, but now such cooperation was rare. Crime reports complied over the past few years revealed that crime rates had grown five times in the revenue police area. Following crunch of staff and lack of required training, they could not rightly tackle cases of cyber crimes and the likes, he added.
Another revenue police officer said that British Government had introduced Revenue police way back in 1861, creating three posts - Revenue Inspector, Revenue Sub Inspector and a fourth class employee for collecting revenue from the residents and to put check on crimes and maintain law and order in the mountainous parts.
Echoing the view of Kapri, he said aside from filling up the vacant posts, the State Government must impart training to the personnel to cope with the rising spiral of crimes. The Government should also provide lockers, handcuffs, computers, and other modern gadgets to deal with the crime cases reported now-a-days. However, whether the State Government would evince interest in re-jigging the force against the backdrop of the Revenue police personnel remaining inclined to go for strike was uncertain.
The proposal to open up eight new police stations in the areas under the Revenue police jurisdiction might be construed as a precursor to swapping revenue police with civil police across the 60 per cent of the State’s geographical territory where revenue police was mandated to maintain law and order simultaneously with collection of taxes.
In meeting held on Friday with State Cabinet Ministers Yashpal Arya and Pritam Singh, State DGP BS Sidhu explained why such a decision had become an imperative in the changed texture of the State’s law and order scenario. Revenue police going on strike frequently is impacting law and order adversely. Besides, the staff strength of revenue police is less than what is required.
Several serious crime cases, committed in areas under Revenue police being transferred to regular police are pointers to where things are moving now. All the women- related cases are being investigated by the civil police. If police’s proposal is accepted eight regular police stations would come up in Mori in Uttarkashi, lambganv and Thatyud in Tehri Garhwal, Thalisain in Pauri, Danya in Almora, Kanda in Bageshwar, Thana pati in Champawat and Tyuni in Dehradun districts, it is learnt.