No petty crime for Kerala Police

[karira]

As reported in newindpress.com on 08 June 2008:
No petty crime for Kerala Police - Newindpress.com

No petty crime for Kerala Police

CONGRATULATIONS to Kerala on having one of the most disciplined and law abiding police forces! Policemen don't smoke in public places, drink and drive, drive without a helmet or park their vehicles in wrong places.

But yes, they do commit serious crimes.

If one were to go by the police report on the police, the behaviour of Kerala cops is in itself a subject for psycho analysis.

More than 36 replies received by the this website's newspaper, following an initiative under the newspaper's RTI campaign, revealed an interesting detail.

Only three policemen have been charged in the state for petty offences in the last year! Queries regarding details of petty offences committed by policemen were answered by authorities from 12 districts.

Disregarding the rules of the RTI Act, police authorities at Kottayam and Idukki didn't respond to the questions, even after a direction from police headquarters to provide the necessary information.

According to the report from the department, two policemen were charged in Tripunithura station limits for drunk driving last year.

One policeman was fined by the Kozhikode city traffic police for driving without a helmet.

In contrast, 64 policemen were charged for serious offences. The charges against them include serious crimes like atrocities against women and violation of the Abkari Act.

A total of 42,583 persons from the general public were charged for drunk driving throughout the state, barring Kottayam and Idukki, in the last year.

For not wearing helmets, 1,76,844 persons were charged. For committing silly offences 12,82,142 cases were charged by the police department. In all 21,855 persons and 63,928 defaulters were charged for public smoking and minor violation of traffic rules respectively.

The revenue received by the government as fines collected from the public would run into many crores.