Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Sunday launched the State Night Policing Scheme —claimed to be first-ever initiative of its kind in India.
Apparently shaken out of slumber by increasing incidences of lawlessness across the State, the Punjab Government has woken up to the need of setting up a full-fledged night police force. For the purpose, a separate cadre for night policing has been constituted that will operate only at the night time, and sleep during the daytime.
As per the project, special units would be set up under separate superintendents of police (SPs) for each district. Under the scheme, the night police have special units at the district-level and also in all the corporation towns, and have separate SPs. In addition, it would also man all the national and State highways.
The need for having “night police” arise as under the current setup, a policeman had to operate round-the-clock which was very taxing, and after working till 10 to 11 pm, there was no one patrolling on the streets till around 8 to 9 am.
With this, the night policing was getting ignored due to rotational night duty of policemen, and moreover policemen performing night duty were not getting adequate rest, asserted Sukhbir after launching the scheme at Khanpur (Kharar) on Sunday evening by unveiling the foundation stone.
“The police personnel manning the new units would sleep during the daytime and operate at night,” said Sukhbir adding that it also had been decided to have total dominance of police on highways and streets to check the activities of anti-social elements.