Question

Q. The significantly high number of police personnel are committing suicides in India. Discuss the factors responsible for it and suggest measures.

Answer 1

APPROACH:

• A brief introduction providing the context of the question
• Reasons for increasing incidences of suicide
• Way forward
• Conclusion

Introduction

Over 900 police personnel committed suicide in the five years. This includes personnel of the Central Armed Police Forces, Delhi Police, state police, Central Reserve Police Force.

Reasons for suicide

• Police personnel have no fixed hours of duty. They are considered to be on duty all the time. This deprives them of the luxury of spending time with their families.
• Denial of leave is another sore point that affects the efficiency of the police and leads to frustration. Though no superior generally likes to deny leave to his or her subordinates, operational requirements most often warrant a full-strength force to deal with varied law and order problems.
• The health of police personnel has taken a toll because of erratic working hours and lack of physical exercise. Many of them are known to suffer from stress-related diseases such as depression and obesity. Unable to cope, they end their lives.

Who is to blame?

While it is easy to apportion blame on the officers for suicide or fratricide, it is the system that stands to be inculpated. Due to large vacancies in the police forces, a huge responsibility rests on the available personnel to maintain law and order.

Way forward

• To arrest the growing incidence of suicides, the government needs to take multi-pronged steps with urgency. An acute shortage of personnel in the police has to be of immediate concern. In 2014, there was a shortage of over 5.6 lakh personnel against the sanctioned strength of 22.8 lakh. An in-depth study of the requirement of police personnel over the next decade would be conducive to plan recruitment and training in a phased manner.
• Senior officers need to identify personnel with deviant behaviour. The Delhi Police has taken a step forward in this direction to identify personnel with psychological disorders to put them through counselling sessions. Frequent interactions between officers and subordinates will help subordinates air their grievances freely. Even if the grievances are not immediately redressed, it will be soothing for an officer to share his or her problems with a senior officer. It might even forestall a suicide attempt.