Odisha issues SOPs for cops on dealing with defence personnel
The SOP was issued following the outrage over the alleged assault of an army officer and his fiancée on September 15
The Odisha government has issued Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for police interaction with defence personnel at police stations, the state’s advocate general Pitambar Acharya told the Orissa high court on Tuesday.
The guidelines require police officers at all stations to extend due courtesies to defence personnel. “Problems and grievances of the defence personnel would be promptly attended to by the police officer and all required legal and logistic support extended to him as early as possible. If any defence personnel tender a written complaint, the same would be promptly attended to in accordance with the law. Pro-active steps would be taken by the police officer to mitigate his grievance. Whenever any defence personnel either on duty or not, approaches any Police Officer inside the Police Station to lodge a complaint, the police officer would exhibit due courtesy to him so as to respect dignity of the Officer or defence personnel,” the new guidelines said.
The SOP was issued following the outrage over the alleged assault of an army officer and his fiancée on September 15 after they approached the Bharatpur police station to complain of road rage. The army officer was allegedly kept in the lock-up and his fiancee was brutally assaulted after she protested.
The high court has scheduled a final hearing on the issue on November 19.
In September, a bench headed by chief justice Chakradhari Sharan Singh lashed out at the police for the treatment meted out to the army officer and his companion. “What’s disturbing, after having seen the sequence of events that admittedly two persons entered into the police station, apparently not to commit any crime but to lodge a complaint. What happened inside the police station is a mystery & being investigated. It’s however surprising that they came out with a FIR registered against both of them for commission of offence relating to attempt to murder. Will anyone go to a police station after having noticed this fact,” the court said on September 23.