20,000 cops forced to serve retired IPS, IAS officers

Prabhakar Kumar, CNN-IBN, 29th September 2009

Ranchi: Bihar and Jharkhand may be battling the Naxal menace but 20,000 Bihar policemen have been deployed for some other purpose.

They are serving IAS and IPS officials, many of them retired.

Bihar Police Association’s Jitendra Singh said, "Aise aaj ala adhikari hai, unke yaha kariban 20,000 hamare jawan begari main lage hai, kheti main lage hai, unke bacho ko school le ja rahe hai (20, 000 of our jawans are engaged in the service for the retired IAS and IPS officers for various domestic duties)."

The diversion of the force for domestic duties has become a serious issue in Bihar and Jharkhand. There's now a severe scarcity of police for law and order duties in these two states.

"We have asked our departments head to immediately look into the matter and strengthen the police picket posts,” added Jitender Singh.

The policemen were trained to counter crime and criminals but now about 20,000 of them have been reduced to the status of personal servants.

They are busy ferrying children to schools, carrying suitcases of their bosses and buying groceries for their homes. They do all household jobs except their assigned government duties.

Meanwhile, those they serve have been claiming that they deserve it.

Retired DGP of Jharkhand TP Sinha is entitled to two police personal but allegedly has more than eight jawans to his disposal.

“I don’t have any jawans from the Bihar police, even if I do, there is nothing wrong in it,” Sinha said.

As for the police, they don't have enough courage to act against their own bosses or former bosses.

This seems to be yet another case of law enforcers breaking the law.

(With inputs from Jaishankar Kumar)