NEW DELHI: The Centre has decided to put up the pictures of corrupt police officers and personnel on the notice boards of the police stations along with the citation of their crime. Further, the display would not be limited to the police stations only, the authorities will have to publish the action-taken details on the social media as well.
The decision has been taken as a part of the government's initiative of 'Police Image and Public Connect'.
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), responsible for country's internal security, in a missive to all the police heads — Director General of Police — stated: "Action against corrupt police officials be given due publicity on social media; photographs of corrupt police officials be displayed at police stations along with details on incidents in which they were involved."
A top source in the government stated that this decision is not limited only to the lower-rank policemen. "Corrupt Senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officers' photographs would be prominently displayed," said the source, adding that that the government has also directed that the police forces will have to strengthen their internal vigilance units to catch the corrupt policemen.
A senior IPS officer said that the acute manpower shortage, duty fatigue and desertions are leading to increasing instances of corruption among cops.
As per the initiative, the government has also told all the police heads to form an in-house team to analyse social media content and also to increase police outreach. The directives also stated: "Tweets and retweets, social media posts and discussions be scientifically analysed to understand perception and mood with specific reference to current/upcoming issues."
The directive pointed out that "local language along with Hindi and English be used to disseminate content on social media for maximum outreach". It also stated that small uniformed police foot patrol teams be used to increase police visibility and pictures and videos of these be disseminated to improve the police image.
The videos and pictures showing police sensitivity should be widely shared across all the social media platforms, added the directives. (IANS)