Hyderabad: The state police has taken up the task of cleaning the department of personnel who are indulging in corruption or promoting unethical practices. The exercise, according to senior police officials, is being taken up to improve the image of the police.
To begin with, the heads of districts and commissionerates across the state are identifying police personnel of the rank of assistant sub-inspector and below to ranks who have been posted at the same police station or office for long.
“After identifying them, we are doing a background check. If the reports of such personnel are adverse they are being attached to the district headquarters. This is being done to check corrupt practices at the police stations levels,” said Nalgonda superintendent of police A.V. Ranganath.
The Nalgonda police has so far identified and transferred about 50 of its personnel. “Such exercises will be routine hereafter to eradicate corruption at all levels,” he added.
Similar exercises has been taken up in the Khammam commissionerate by commissioner Tafseer Iqbal; the official has so far attached around 50 policemen to the headquarters.
Such an exercise was carried out in Hyderabad when Director-General of Police M. Mahendar Reddy was the commissioner of police. Around 100 policemen were attached to the city police headquarters then.
The police stations have a head constable or constable who are called, in police parlance, “collectors” or “road masters”. This is an age-old practice and the proceeds reach senior officers of a certain rank.
Usually the ‘collector’ takes a monthly ‘mamool’ from wine shops, bars, toddy compounds, scrap yards, hotels, road side push and eateries and pan shops, sources said.
The government is now paying for administrative expenses Rs 75,000 for those in the city, Rs 50,000 for those in the district headquarters and Rs 25,000 for small police stations in rural areas and there is no need to collect money, an officer said.
