Seven-thousand policemen serve in the peninsula :

Tamil-friendly police for the North

by Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana

A group of newly recruited Women Police Constables patrolling the streets of Jaffna

Once the war against terrorism was won in May 2009, the biggest challenge faced by the security forces was to restore law and order in the liberated areas. When the lands were taken over by the military with air and naval assistance, the remaining problem was to how civil order was to be established in the province. The responsibility when fell on the police Department was immense as they had to start a whole new chapter in the North.

Although the entire North was heavily armed with the three Forces commanding headquarters, backed by numerous regiments, brigades, naval and air bases down to the sentry points the infrastructural establishment of a police force was not up to satisfaction up until mid 2010 or perhaps early 2011.

Except for a few crucial locations like Jaffna and Vavuniya, where military presence was strong, the rest of the areas had to be introduced to a proper policing system which had not been experienced for the past three decades.

As a result, a huge responsibility of controlling these liberated areas fell upon the Department. To set up new police divisions, stations and posts, was part of the first phase apart from recruiting more staff to man the new areas.

Seven police divisions had been set up in the Northern Province under a Senior Deputy Inspector General who overlooked the entire province and three DIGs in charge of Jaffna, Vavuniya and Mannar ranges. The seven police divisions Jaffna, Kankesanthurai (KKS), Mankulam, Kilinochchi, Mullaithivu, Mannar and Vavuniya are supervised by seven Senior Superintendents of Polic (SSP).

Apart from Vavuniya and Jaffna the rest of the divisions were newly placed and the stations under them were set up after May 2009. In the five new police divisions about 20 new police stations had been set up and 11 police posts were also set up in the recent past. Then top most officer in charge of the province, Senior DIG Gamini Silva who retired a few months ago told the Sunday Observer that 7000 policemen currently serve in the province attached to a number of units including civil affairs, crime detection, traffic administration, women's and children's bureau and intelligence.

What is significant about the Northern Province compared to the other eight provinces is that the percentage of reporting crime is low and the crime solving percentage was high.

These crimes were only theft and robbery which could be considered as the gravest crimes being reported along with a considerable amount of domestic violence cases reported to the Police Women's and Children's Bureau.

There are hardly any grave crimes reported like murder, assault, rape, abduction or arson in the peninsula since 2009.

Although the entire peninsula was liberated, terror was still continuing with the series of assassinations conducted by the LTTE pistol gang.

This came to a halt with the liberation of the entire Northern Province and the joint operation launched by the military and the police in Jaffna.

Zero incidents were reported since then, except for certain anti-social elements like theft and robbery being reported every now and then. The targeted spots for robbery are mainly jewellery shops where gold has been looted on many occasions. However, special surveillance systems and mobile patrol units were deployed to control this situation.

But at the moment completing five years of the liberation of the North from the clutches of the LTTE, the most important objective of the police was not only to ensure public security and maintain law and order but to win the hearts of the majority of the Tamil population living in those areas. To do this the main obstacle, the language barrier had to be addressed.

This is why the department took special measures to recruit more and more Tamil speaking officers into the cadre to serve the public. Amidst the 7000 strong police cadre in the North, 3000 Tamil officers had been absorbed to the force during the past three years. Recruiting Tamil police officers to the force and training Sinhala police officers with the Tamil language is something given priority by the police department to facilitate the Northern civilians and patch the gap between the two language barriers that caused much confusion for decades.

According to Police Spokesman, SSP Ajith Rohana all police stations in the North accept complaints in Tamil now. Police Headquarters launched a special project to assign officers proficient in Tamil to police stations in the Northern Province.

Special six-month Tamil language courses are held in Police Training Academies in Vavuniya and KKS where 1800 Sinhala police officers are given a Tamil language training. Apart from this 800 Tamil police officers passed out recently as well. The officers with these language skills are deployed at every police station in the province to make the administration work to run smoothly and efficiently.