Police must be civilised, not a brute force, Rajnath Singh says

MEERUT: Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said the police force in the 21st century could no longer be a "brute force" but would have to function as a "civilised" unit and consider less lethal solutions in carrying out policing tasks and in crowd control.

"There are situations when the police have to use force to tackle crowds and mobs but a lot of prudence is required in that. We are in the 21st century and the (police) force cannot be a brute force any longer but has to be a civilized one. We need to apply minimum force to achieve maximum results," Singh said, addressing Rapid Action Force personnel at their base here in Meerut on the occasion of the silver jubilee of the unit.


Oppose attempts to divide nation, Rajnath tells forces

Police, including personnel on the ground, need to exercise patience and control while dealing with challenging situations like riots and protesting crowds," Rajnath Singh said, urging police units, both under the Centre and states, to adopt new technology and psychological solutions to "control and divert minds" of rampaging crowds during protests or riots.

Singh urged security forces to keep a check on incidents in which "attempts could be made to break the country on the lines of caste, religion or regionalism".

In his address to RAF personnel, Singh also announced the setting up of five more battalions of the force, adding to the existing 10 battalions. "The new battalions will become operational from January 1, 2018," he said.

Now the 10 battalions are stationed generally in communally sensitive areas in the country—Meerut, Jamshedpur, Allahabad, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bhopal and Aligarh, Mumbai and Delhi.

Doing away with the system of providing stitched uniforms to personnel, Singh announced Rs 10,000 per annum as uniform allowance and up to Rs 1 crore in compensation to the kin of personnel "who achieve martyrdom while serving the nation".

Singh also strongly defended PM Narendra Modi's pledge of carving out a "New India by 2022". "When our PM made a pledge to carve out a new India by 2022, many groups asked whether a pledge alone would suffice. But let me remind you, Mahatma Gandhi also took a pledge and launched Quit India Movement in 1942 and in just five years, India was a free nation. This is the power of a pledge," he said.