Thiruvananthapuram: 8 cops suspended over unruly incidents

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city police commissioner has suspended eight civil police officers over unruly incidents that happened on Saturday in connection with the election to police cooperative society.
The officers were suspended after they were involved in laying siege to an office inside Armed Reserve Camp, shouting slogans over the distribution of identity cards for the election which will be held on Thursday.
The suspended officers are G R Ajith, Harilal R G, Renjith, Shobhan Prasad, Minimil M S, Sheeja Das, Sanal Kumar and Anil Kumar. G R Ajith, former general secretary of the association, and Renjith are already under suspension in connection with another incident.
In the suspension order, city police additional commissioner K Sanjay Kumar said that those suspended have committed grave misconduct which is highly unbecoming of a police officer.
An inquiry has also been initiated against them. The Museum police have registered three cases in connection with the unruly incidents that happened on Saturday. The incidents started after some of the police officers protested alleging that the identity cards were not being distributed to the pro-UDF association members. There are six more officers who are involved in the incident on Saturday, against whom also actions including suspension will be initiated. Of the six officers, two belong to Thiruvananthapuram rural police, and one each to railway police, state armed police camp, Kerala Armed Police battalion-4 and rapid response and rescue force. The city police commissioner has asked the respective units to initiate action against them.
The police housing cooperative society, that was under the rule of pro-UDF police organization from 2013 to 2017, is currently under administrative rule. The society has been constituted for the welfare of police officers, including providing them with various loans like education loan, computer loan, emergency loan and accident health insurance.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said that there is a deliberate attempt to sabotage the police cooperative society elections. He said that if if the elections are held properly, the pro-LDF panel would surely lose which is why there is an attempt to thwart the “fair process”. He said that the same people who tried to sabotage postal vote of the police in the last general elections are the people who are behind the current foul play also.