Sunday, September 6, 2009
By Basil Fernando
(September 06, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The responsibility of supervising a police station and ensuring orderly behavior of officers and discipline is the responsibility of the Assistant Superintendant of Police in charge of the police station. Normally, under the control of each ASP there are several police stations within a specific area. If there is breakdown of law and discipline within a police station, as was the case at the Angulana police post, it is a clear indication that the ASP in charge has criminally neglected the discharge of his most basic duties. He should be taken to task, both for criminal neglect as well as for serious violations of discipline.
From information now available, which came out particularly through the evidence given at the inquests of the deaths of the two young persons, the following gross abuses of discipline have taken place at the Angulana police station:
The Officer in Charge of the police station and several other police officers were drunk on that fateful evening. This has been confirmed by many witnesses, some of whom are police officers themselves, or assistants who had worked at that station. Besides this, the parents of the children and others who have visited the police station have also confirmed that the OIC and several other officers were acting under the influence of liquor. A statement made by the member of the parliament of the area states that he had previously been made aware that the officers at the station are drunk in the evenings and often assault suspects. He claimed to have made complaints about the matter.
Assaulting suspects for the purpose of obtaining bribes from their relatives has remained a habit at this police station. The parents of both of the deceased gave evidence to that effect, and also said that even they had been prepared to pay the necessary bribes in order to get their children out, but on this night they could not even achieve that.
The officers paid their assistants with heroin for various services done at the police station, such as cleaning and running errands. The police regulations require that all payments to all persons be done according to rules and that registers of payments should be maintained. The supervision of these registers if the task of the ASP.
Not only has there been a violation of such financial regulations, but the officers even had the habit of making payments by giving packets of heroin to employees. All matters relating to drugs are in a primary area of special concern and all drugs that have been confiscated have to be maintained strictly according to rules laid down by the police department. All matters relating to drugs should have come also under the supervision of the local magistrate. As the most direct monitor and supervisor of the police station, it was the duty of the ASP to ensure that all such rules are properly being followed. When a police station degenerates to such an extent that it makes payments through heroin, there can be hardly any doubt that the ASP concerned is thoroughly neglectful and is in fact complicit in this matter.
There has been abuse of the law and the rules relating to the use of firearms. The evidence has clearly come out that the OIC, along with three other officers, opened the box in which the guns had been kept at the police station and took three guns, and then proceeded into a van in which the blindfolded two young boys were also taken. The inquest has established that the youth were killed by shooting. There are numerous laws and rules relating to the keeping of firearms at a police station; the rules to be observed during the removal of a firearm; recordings that must be made properly, including authorization of such removal; the purposes of such removal; and the persons who are carrying those arms.
There are also rules relating to the use of ammunition. Whenever any such use has been made of the ammunition, there also has to be detailed recordings relating to those matters. Supervision of all such conduct is one of the most serious duties of the ASP who is responsible for the police station.
Evidence before court has already revealed that there was tearing of official documents and writing of false statements in the official books maintained at the police station. A police officer, who had been asked to tear a page out of an officially maintained book and asked to replace it with a page torn from another book, gave evidence in court. He also gave evidence that he was asked to rewrite a statement in his own handwriting and then to forge a signature. Even the page that had been torn out was found by the inquiring officers. One of the most important duties of an ASP is to ensure that all the books used at the police station, including the pocket books of all the police officers, are being kept according to the rules. Tampering with official documents of the police is an offence of a very serious nature. Therefore, this too is a serious breach of discipline by the ASP.
Above are some of the most glaring illegalities for which the ASP should be taken to task by the Inspector General of Police. An ASP is the direct higher ranking in the chain of command which goes up to the IGP. It is the duty of the SSP, SP and DIG of the area to ensure that the ASP does his job properly. If they do not strictly enforce discipline of the ASPs, it is simply impossible to control the type of unlawful activities and sheer anarchy that are reflected in the case of the Angulana police post. None of the matters mentioned above, such as drunkenness during duty; torture of suspects; the illegal and immoral manner in which the drugs are being abused by officers for private gain or as means of fabricating charges against innocent citizens; tampering with documents in a most unscrupulous manner; abuse of law and rules relating to firearms; creating fabricated documents to mislead their superiors and the courts; and the abuse of arrest and detention in order to obtain bribes, are today common practices at all police stations.
While some actions have been taken on the murder of two boys, so far there is no report at all of any action being taken by the IGP regarding the conduct of the ASP, who bears the overall responsibility of monitoring and supervising of Angulana police station. If this serious neglect of duty by this ASP is not brought under a serious investigation, it would be a clear indication that the IGP and other high ranking police officers are not taking serious actions to stop lawlessness and indiscipline at police stations. Their only engaged in some sort of a cosmetic action which may pacify the angry public for the moment, but will not resolve any of the problems that have been manifested through the Angulana police murders.
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