SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024
Aires Rodrigues
The continuing so pathetic and very appalling working conditions of our police constabulary in particular is an issue that needs to be dealt with as a top priority to bolster their morale. In rank violation of law, our police in Goa are made to work very long hours which needless to say is taking a heavy toll on their personal and family lives. We have all been witness to a spate of incidents that has exposed the stress related fragility affecting the force. Some of them get a break after many days. On account of long hours of work related stress, a lot of our helpless cops are unjustly grappling with health problems like hypertension, diabetes and depression.
The working and living conditions of the staff at some of the police stations and barracks is so very inhumane to say the least. This uncaring treatment meted out to the police force is a clear and blatant Human Rights violation. Like all other government employees there is no reason why the police should also not get an eight hour shift which would infact increase their efficiency and work output.
Goa infact has more than enough police, but they are not being rightly deployed. Hundreds of them are assigned to protect and serve politicians and other VIPs beyond their official permissible entitlement. Today our police have no time left for proper investigation of crimes and street policing which infact is their basic duty.
The Government seems to have lost sight that our police have a personal life too. A human body can only do so much. One cannot be expected to work over eight hours a day. Even an animal requires rest and, for that matter, not even a machine will function unless it is rested adequately. The Government cannot be a cause for ruining the health and lives of the police force. These genuine grievances and pathetic working conditions confronting the police must be looked into in right earnest. Otherwise, instead of focusing on building bridges and roads, the Government may have to set up as a priority more hospitals to take care of our over worked police constabulary, if not more crematoriums, cemeteries and khabrastans for perennial rest of their spent bodies.
Over the years I have championed the cause of the police force, and this battle will continue till our Police are rightly treated as humans with due respect and their deserved dignity with no room left whatsoever for slavery to perpetuate. More importantly, the police morale will keep falling as officers feel undervalued and overworked and overstretched with worrying consequences for their health and well being.
No modern civilized democratic society should find it acceptable that politicians who legislate and create laws should be immersed in all sorts of luxurious privileges, financial benefits and working conditions while those that are employed to uphold and enforce those laws and protect our citizens namely our hard working police are at the opposite end of the spectrum overstretched and earning a pittance while toiling in poor conditions.
Sir Robert Peel who created the London Metropolitan police force, the first in the world believed that ‘the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence’.
Barbara Boxer the retired American Senator observed that’ law enforcement officers are never off duty. They are dedicated public servants who are sworn to protect public safety at any time and place that the peace is threatened. They need and deserve all the help that they can get’.
It is morally and logically correct that our police force should be treated as well as if not better than the best of our other public servants, frontline and emergency heroes. The Government must stop treating our dedicated police force as cannon fodder or an expendable commodity for their personal use rather than for the common good.
