Jharkhand Police will be working towards making most of its police stations child-friendly in the coming six months, after CID IG Sampat Meena prompted the Child Welfare Officers from across the state to do so during the review and certification ceremony of Child Friendly Police Station programme in the state on Tuesday.
“In six months time, six major districts of the state – Ranchi, Jamdshedpur, Dhanbad, Bokaro, Hazaribagh and Doeghar – should have at least half of their police stations up to the mark of CFPS and all of them in the rest of the districts should achieve this target,” Meena said to the gathered CWOs. “All the distressed and accused children are brought in front of Special Juvenile Police Unit before bringing them to the attention of the further authorities. In a state such as Jharkhand where the crimes against and committed by children are so high, police stations needs be optimised for handling these cases,” stated UNICEF Child Protection Officer Preeti Shrivastav.
After initiating the programme in state in December 2013, a list of 21 indicators was prepared by UNICEF, fulfilling which will establish a police station as child-friendly. CWOs from 27 police stations, six from West Singhbhum, five from Koderma, four from Deoghar, three each from Dumka, Saraikela and Ranchi and one each from Pakur, Sahibganj and Jamshedpur which met these indicators, were felicitated by Justice DN Patel, DGP DK Pandey and state UNICEF head Madhulika Jonathan.
“Police personnel need to adjust their attitude when dealing with minors in comparison to handling cases with adults as accused. For dealing with sensitive cases of juvenile justice, a cultivated eye is a must. It should be kept in mind that the errors of the past are not repeated,” said Justice Patel.
DGP DK Pandey said to attending police officials, “We need to change ourselves to become a more sensitive force and change the perception public has about the police. For this, the least our officers can do is to go to educational institutions in their jurisdictions and interact with the students there. This will help the future generations in seeing police force in a new light.”