Spoken English classes to help cops crack sensitive cases

Constables and low-ranking police officers in the Vasai-Virar region are attending hour-long spoken English classes which will continue for two months

Mumbai: Constables and other low-ranking police officers in the Mira-Bhayander-Vasai-Virar (MBVV) region are undergoing spoken English classes to help them interact better with suspects and complainants and investigate sensitive cases.

Spoken English classes to help cops crack sensitive cases

“When any visitor to a police station starts speaking in English, some policemen stop talking because of the language barrier and find it difficult to comprehend what is being said. The training will help them overcome these problems,” a senior police officer posted in the MBVV region told Hindustan Times.

As an example, senior officers mentioned the case of Aftab Poonawala, who was arrested in Delhi for allegedly killing his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar in May 2022, chopping her body into at least 35 pieces, storing them in a refrigerator for about three months, and dumping them in a Gurgaon forest and other parts of south Delhi.

“When Poonawala was summoned by the Manikpur police after his girlfriend’s father lodged a missing complaint, he began speaking in fluent English with a foreign accent, which befuddled and confused the low-ranking officers present there,” said the senor officer quoted earlier.

The officers at Manikpur police station in Vasai West let Poonawala walk away on two occasions as they failed to comprehend what he was saying, which delayed the investigation and led to outrage and anger across the country, the officer noted.

Jaywant Bajbale, deputy commissioner of police, Vasai, said that most low-ranking officers came from interior parts of Maharashtra and were educated in Marathi. As a result, they found it difficult to communicate or understand minute details if the person in front started speaking in English.

“The communication barrier is especially problematic in cases of cheating and sexual offences where conversations and messages are mostly in English,” said Bajbale. Officers do not press on complainants in such cases to speak in Marathi as they do not want to make the latter uncomfortable or make them relive their trauma, said Sujit Kumar Pawar, senior police inspector attached with Achole police station in Vasai East.

To tackle these problems, constables and low-ranking police officers in the MBVV region are attending hour-long spoken English classes which will continue for two months, said sources. They training will help them interact with foreign nationals who are present in the Vasai-Virar region in large numbers and often accused in cases of drug peddling, the sources added.