'Suspend cops who refuse to register complaint'

Union home secretary RK Singh said an atmosphere should be created where women and weaker sections of the society get the ability to register a complaint without facing difficulty.

A policeman should be suspended immediately if he refuses to register a complaint, Union home secretary RK Singh has suggested.

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"There should not be any hesitation in suspending any policeman who refuses to register a complaint. That is in law. Not registering any complaint is violation of law," he said.

According to Singh, people face ordeal in every step while going to a police station for registering any case as well as trying to know the status of their complaint.

"That has to be changed. For the women, weaker sections or the poor, visiting a police station itself is an ordeal. To know the status of any compliant, without taking the local MLA along, it is impossible," he said.

The home secretary said an atmosphere should be created where women and weaker sections of the society get the ability to register a complaint without facing difficulty.

He said in cases like molestation, the very thought of going through the ordeal to brief the policemen about the incident dissuade many to go to a police station and that has to be changed.

"It is high time, as a country we have to woke up. Our inability to protect women and weaker sections of the society is a huge, huge problem," he told the country's top police brass at a conference in New Delhi on Friday.

The conference was convened in the wake of the brutal gangrape and assault of a 23-year-old girl in Delhi. The girl died in a hospital in Singapore on December 29.