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UN honour for Kerala police station
Palakkad's police station scores 85 out of 100 in five ‘subjects’ to rank 2nd in SE Asia’s best police station test, held by a Netherlands-based agency, reports Ramesh Babu.
Professionalsim, physical condition, community orientation, equal treatment of the public and transparency and accountability at detention centres. Palakkad town’s south police station scored 85 out of 100 in these five ‘subjects’ to rank second in South East Asia’s best police station test, conducted by Netherlands-based Altus Global, an accredited agency working for the UN.
“The state government has received a communiqué from the international agency. It is a great honour. Last week some of our police officers had gone to Kuala Lumpur to make a final presentation,” said state Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.
The agency had conducted a ‘police station visitors’ week’ in October as part of a global programme to observe the functioning of police stations asking the local residents to fill in individual questionnaires. More than sixty had participated in the random online survey in Palakkad.
The top prize was taken by Malaysia’s Bhuthang station.
“We were on the first position till the final round. Our community policing initiative ‘Jagratha’ has won special mention at the meeting held at the Malaysian police academy. It is a big honour,” said Palakkad district superintendent Vijay Sakhre who led the team to Malaysia.
A thrilled Kerala government has announced several plans to reform the police organization. “We are planning to raise the educational qualification for recruitment. We will recruit more women in the force to narrow down the gender inequality,” the Home Minister said. With post-graduates and Phds filling their constabulary, the state police is already one of the best-qualified forces in the country.
Recently the government had decided to deploy more women constables and other officers at police stations to check their male counterparts. According to the sources with the police, it has had the desired effect in checking “unruly behaviour”.
