Arunachal’s para-forces: Designed and destined to fail
Antics of para-forces are symptomatic of rot in police system
New Director General of Police (DGP), Arunachal Pradesh Kanwaljit Deol took charge on July 26 and it was a sort of homecoming for her to be back in the state after almost a decade and a half. And she was welcomed back with a bandh call two days later on July 28, in response to death of Late Jumchi Nguso in the hands of police officials at Naharlagun police station. Before she could take a lungful of air, her policemen killed one more innocent citizen, Miti Mepo. This time in a far-flung area called Roing in Lower Dibang Valley district.
Without condoning the killing of the innocent civilians, one would like to believe that brutal acts of Indian Reserve Battalion (IRBn) and Arunachal Armed Police Battalion (AAPBn) are manifestations of the rot within the police system that started with the establishment of 1st AAPBn in late 80’s as much as setting up of 1st IRBn in late 90’s. Subsequent state police chiefs and Home Ministers failed miserably in addressing the issues that crept within, knowingly or for want of feedback from AIGs and DIGs. At conceptual plane, AAPBn and IRBn were raised as paramilitary forces, not as civil police force.
In principle, a battalion should have atleast 900 personnel’s plus it should have administrative staff including doctors and para-medics. And para-forces like AAPBn and IRBn should aid, not form the core, in enforcing law and order. But the gap in concept and its application of para-forces is shameful, to say the least. Today, Arunachal Pradesh boasts of at least two battalions of AAPBns and at least another three functional IRBns in the state. One say functional because on an average there are not more than 550 personnel across these five battalions of AAPBns and IRBns put together. In other words, these so called battalions are not battalions in real sense of military concept and parlance. Neither AAPBns nor IRBns have their own support staffs like doctors and para-medics. Absence of such hygiene factors has been causing lot of pain and irritation amongst the personnel, in absence of family support, while in far flung areas. More heart-burns amongst the para-military forces have been caused by the inhumane ‘command and control’ of civil police officers while deploying them in enforcing routine law and order situations.
There is a yawning gap in training inputs and their utilization in daily work schedule. Recruits of AAPBns and IRBns are trained under Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), not under civil police academy. But, in Arunachal Pradesh, IRBn and AAPBn personnel’s are deployed under civil police officer of Arunachal Pradesh Police (APP) who does not have in-depth understanding and knowledge about training inputs, which is highly focused on martial training, rather than focusing on behavioral aspects as done in civil police training centers. Secondly, there appears to be festering feeling amongst state para-forces’ jawans against the APP officers since their welfare measures are not looked after. Reportedly, para-forces are requisitioned for a month or two in different places but they are made to stay for more than 5-6 months together in shanty barracks, without botheration for bare minimum hygienic requirements of toilets, bathrooms and proper kitchen. As if to add salt to the injuries, IRBns and AAPBns jawans are provided with fixed travelling allowances unlike that of civil police wherein it is linked to pay-scale. With most of its officers from APP cadre, IRBns and AAPBns jawans have a growing sense of alienation within the system with no one to speak about their pains and agonies besides step-motherly treatment meted out on day to day basis like denial of government quarters till date, to the recruits of first batch of AAPBn!
Bumptious officials at home department in civvies and in uniform must wake upto the realities that structure of command and control is out of sync with training inputs at respective training academies. Political leaders must, as often said, shed ostrich syndrome; and should push for a separate officer cadre of state’s para-forces, lest they wish to be termed as Arunachalee Victor Frankenstein. But when there is a DGP, buck must stop at her table, not politicians.
Men in uniform have done enough to discredit themselves on its own. This time around if the DGP or the Home Minister or even for that matter the Chief Minister try to justify policemen’s action, without condemning the incident, would be catastrophic and that would be much more disastrous than natural calamities that hit Dibang Valleys recently. General public, civil society bodies and media houses in Arunachal have done enough to tell the government that there is something amiss within the police department in the state but all fell on deaf ears. In initiating a change process, first stepping stone is to acknowledge the existence of gaps between current situation and desired state of affairs; but state’s home ministry has been living in denial of the weak-links. Introspection is needed within top brass on various aspects including structuring, team compositions, training inputs and welfare measures of police force etc. New DGP, Kanwaljit Deol must come to terms with the reality that situations have changed since her last tenure in mid 90’s. It is for her to judge whether it is for good or bad. However, as a postscript, one would like to point out that it is not just the dynamics between IRBn and AAPBn Vs APP; but also within APP there appears to be cracks. Cases in point were the troubles in pockets at capital complex on July 28 bandh, wherein any keen observer could have pointed out the dynamics at play, within APP also.
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