Kerala’s Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday vowed to end the “colonial” practice of using low-ranking policemen and menial staffers in the force (Camp Followers) as home servants by top officials even as the Camp Followers’ Association asked its members not to work as servants at senior officials’ houses anymore and the police authorities asked Camp Followers doing such work to return to their respective camps.
Replying to a submission from KS Sabarinathan of the Congress in the State Assembly in connection with the alleged assault on a police driver by the daughter of an Additional Director General of Police, Pinarayi said stringent action would be taken against any official – however senior he or she was – who acted in violation of the norms.
Stating that a system had been in existence here by which top police officials were using ordinary policemen for personal purposes, the Chief Minister said, “This is a decadent culture handed down from the colonial times in the Police Department.
It is very serious that complaints that have come up now show that the system is still there seven decades after Independence.”
Instructions had already been issued to examine whether police constables and other employees in the police force were being used by senior officials for works at their homes and for other personal services, Pinarayi said, adding, “The Government will certainly put an end to such tendencies and practices.”
This undesirable tendency in the police force had showed its hood several times in the past but the Government would respect and protect the human rights of all the employees in the police force, he said. Discipline was of paramount importance in the police force but violation of human rights in the name of discipline would not be tolerated, he said.
The Chief Minister said that the Crime Branch of the Kerala Police was probing last week’s incident in which the daughter of ADGP Sudesh Kumar IPS had allegedly assaulted and verbally abused his official police driver, Gavaskar. The Government had removed Sudesh Kumar from the position of head of the Armed Police Battalion following the scandal.
According to Gavaskar, the ADGP’s daughter had abused him verbally and hit him hard in the neck and shoulders with a mobile phone for being late in taking the vehicle to her and her mother when they had gone for a morning walk last Thursday. The police have registered a case against her under non-bailable charges on the basis of his complaint.
They have also registered a case against Gavaskar for outraging modesty of woman on the basis of a complaint from her.
The incident had triggered stiff protests in the police force and it had emboldened dozens of policemen and camp followers to come out with complaints about the atrocities they had suffered in the hands of top officials who used them as home servants.
Meanwhile, the association of Camp Followers (menial staffers working as cleaners, cooks, sweepers and barbers at police camps) has asked its members not to go for the job of servants at top officials’ homes anymore in the context of the controversies sparked off by the Gavaskar incident and the subsequent disclosures.
The association has also decided to lodge complaints formally with the Chief Minister and the State police chief, DGP loknath Behera, on Wednesday on the matter and to hand over to them the details like numbers and names of the top police officials who had been using Camp Followers as their house servants.
Instructions have already been issued to the Camp Followers presently engaged as personal aides and home servants by senior officials to return to their respective units immediately.
However, many top officials are reportedly refusing to send them back. In some cases, such employees are finding it difficult to return to their camps because of pressures from their own unit heads.