Chennai: PIL to fill police vacancies in zones, dts

Chennai: A public interest litigation has been filed in the Madras high court to direct the state home secretary to fill the vacancies of the police officers in East, West, North and South zones in Chennai city and vacancies of police officers in other districts in the state of Tamil Nadu.

The PIL filed by Y.Akbar Ahmed, which also sought a direction to the state home secretary to implement the Tamil Nadu Police Reforms Act, 2013, in letter and spirit by constituting State Security Commission and Police Establishment Boards in the state and district levels, is likely to come up for hearing on September 12.

In his PIL, Akbar Ahmed submitted that on his RTI query as to the number of vacancies in police force in all the four zones in Chennai, he got reply only with regard to North Zone. Between January 1, 2016 and now, one assistant commissioner post, one inspector of police post, 33 sub-inspectors of police post and 393 other ranks posts were vacant. It is very shocking to know that there is such a huge vacancies in North zone alone, he added.

He said due to such a shortage of police strength, it was obvious that the burden of workload will be automatically transferred on the available strength and duty hours will be increased and the said police officers will do both day and night shifts together without taking proper rest and sleep.

Due to which, there was a serious threat to their lives as they will have huge mental and physical stress. They will also not behave in a normal way with litigant and general public.

The overburdening work will lead to sleeping issues, psychiatric issues, cardiac issues, liver damage and brain problems and other risk of serious diseases. Therefore, it was the primary duty of home department without any further delay, to fill the vacancies in all the four zones in Chennaiand in other districts in the state, he added.