Terms, very common like ‘professional’ , ‘specialist’, ‘expert’ or ‘authority’ are not only heard but found actually in almost all fields of human activities. Fields like Medicine, Law, Engineering, Education, Police etc have personnel who have gained expertise and acquired knowledge whether by trainings, exposure or higher studies etc in a particular and special wing or branch to give the best and reap the wonderful results. This basic principle of compartmentalisation of the two main fundamental assignments – that of maintaining law and order and conducting investigations in crimes, is not employed in the Jammu and Kashmir Police comprising a strong force of over 90,000 personnel. Despite the Force performing its duties profoundly and not lagging behind the Police force of other states, yet doing justice with the requisite job and showing still better and desired results is , on the whole, found missing in its functioning, the onus of which widely rests on the top hierarchy of the Force and equally rather more in proportion, by the Home Department of Jammu and Kashmir Government.
Such state of affairs are allowed to rule the system despite pointed and concerted recommendations of the All India level DGPs/ IGPs Conference which took place three years back that the two vital functioning of the Police Force should be separated and not combined with intent to show better performance results . Not only this, the recommendations gained added importance and momentousness due to issuing of directions by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs about early and strict implementation. In other words, the investigation and prosecution of crime required to be separated from the law and order duty and it was this segregation which could receive due and focussed attention by the concerned Police officials on the specific job only and not dividing attention, labour , efforts and time on other associated duties. The process, when implemented, could result in more personnel at the service of the core policing functions.
Investigating teams or personnel selected from the main police force must form into a separate and exclusive cadre to deal exclusively with investigation of crime under supervision of the higher authorities. Those investigating crimes, involving grave offences must not only be properly identified depending upon their preferred inclination and the required spark but must be separate and distinct as their duties would not only be investigating the crime but ensuring the accused got due punishment and chances of acquittal were remote . That obviously depended upon the quality of and the professionalism invested in preparing the prosecution case . To this extent, even the Law Commission of India has laid due stress in its 154threport .
We are not at all in a position to comprehend as to why three main ingredients for better functioning were missing in the Jammu and Kashmir Police Force. One- the professional autonomy ; two – imparting training to its personnel at regular intervals and three – introducing more scientific and technical methods to ascertain and crack heinous crimes in foolproof manner. All these cardinal ingredients were central and vital to the satisfactory functioning of the Police Force. We do not have even a well functioning Forensic Science Laboratory to greatly help in the much required speedy prosecution process. Agreed, the Force was not competent or authorised enough administratively to take such decisions as it was working under Home Department and had to get nod and acquiesce from bureaucratic framework for executing of any systemic reforms or changes with the sole objective of bringing about better results , but at what cost. That was totally unjustified and hence unacceptable. The state was reeling under the scourges of cross border terrorism, drug abuses and corruption besides other crimes and segregating law and order from professional investigation of crime was the first thing which ought to have been on the list of priorities.
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