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| Sunday, 16 February 2003 |
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Making Police Department 'public-friendly' by DON ASOKA WIJEWARDENA The Police Department, accused of routinely violating human rights and, identified as the most corrupt among public departments, will be acquiring a new "public friendly" image with a tough new training programme with emphasis on training OICs dealing with crime investigations to perform their duties without human rights violations. Incidence of HR violation by police has been on the increase, with 294 cases filed before the Supreme Court, Appeal Court, High Court, District Court and other courts, in 2002 as against 276 cases filed in 2001 and 253 cases in 2000. The training programmes designed by the Police Higher Training Institute (PHTI) on the directive of the Inspector General of Police, T. E. Anandarajah, will include scientific interrogation of offenders, application of human and fundamental rights, rights of innocent people in a war situation, how to justify police action within the legal framework without violating human rights, human rights of a person in police custody, torture and criminal investigations without violating human rights and crime prevention. According to Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Higher Training, In-Service Exam and Promotion, Gunasena Thenabadu, the primary objective of the programme is to make the entire police department "public-friendly" and create a good impression in people's mind. DIG Thenabadu pointed out that scientific interrogation included in the course will enable police officers to obtain the required facts from any offender without using force, thereby creating a safe working environment for police officers. About 600 SSPs, SPs and ASPs will undergo training in the first stage. Higher officers numbering 97 will also undergo a 6-month training programme (Diploma in Human Rights) beginning February 22 conducted by the Bredford University, United Kingdom. The PHTI has also formulated an effective educational programme on range basis to train police officers dealing with minor complaints such as land disputes, imminent breach of peace, family disputes, industrial disputes and other civil disputes that would affect peace and harmony in the country. DIG Thenabadu said that the 6-month diploma course based on conflict resolution and criminal policing, classification of intervention in conflicts, how police officers manage to resolve such conflicts in war-zone and other situations with humanitarian approach, situational law, procedural law, psychology and human rights will be introduced shortly. On successful completion of the training programmes, all police officers will be required to put his training into practice while on duty. The police headquarters will closely monitor how the police officers discharge their duties and evaluate how far training has helped them to improve public confidence. |
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