Chhattisgarh cops create Naxal fund

The police department in Chhattisgarh is creating a fund to assist families of those of their force who were killed by the Maoists. A report by Ejaz Kaiser.

The police department in Chhattisgarh is creating a fund to assist families of those of their force who were killed by the Maoists. Each policeman, from the director general to the beat constable, will contribute one day’s salary in a year to make up the corpus, adding up to a total of around Rs 1.5 crore annually.

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Called ‘Samman Nidhi’, it is the first such initiative in the country. From June this year, the first step involves taking written consent of every cop for such deduction from his or her salary. In 2007, 194 police personnel lost their lives to Naxalite violence. While the state government makes ex-gratia payments to the families of those killed, this is clearly not enough. “The response has been encouraging. Most have already given their written consent,” said Vishwaranjan, DGP of Chhattisgarh.