There appears to be no end in sight to the turmoil within the Kerala Police ranks after a constable complained of being assaulted by the daughter of an IPS officer. The association of police personnel deployed on personal duty at the home of top-ranked officers has threatened to reveal the identities of senior officers who maltreat lower-rank personnel. The Camp Followers Association has issued strict instructions to its members against taking up domestic work at the home of superiors.
The Kerala home department has also begun collecting the details of police personnel engaged in menial work at the residences of police officers. The details collected included the camp followers' sanctioned strength, present headcount and their status as permanent or temporary workers besides their current status of deployment with senior officials.
DGP Loknath Behera has also issued an order seeking various details of the menial workers, generally known as camp followers, and those deployed on orderly duties with IAS and IPS officers and judges in Kerala. The DGP also asked to collect details of the ministers and other leaders who were given personal security officers due to perceived threats to their lives.
Camp followers are temporary staff hired to do menial work in police camps and are, effectively, not part of the police force as service rules and benefits don't apply to them.
Inhumane treatment
The assault on a police driver by the daughter of ADGP Sudesh Kumar set off a furore over the inhumane treatment of ordinary policemen and camp followers by senior police officers in Kerala. The public outrage over the matter was further fuelled when visuals of police personnel brushing up an senior officer’s dog surfaced.
Television channels have telecast visuals of policemen forced into taking care of the pet dog at the house of ADGP Nitin Agarwal. They were even seen cleaning up the premises of the IPS officer's house. The visuals were shot while Agarwal was serving as the head of the Armed Police Battalion. The policeman in the visuals worked with the police dog squad.
Meanwhile, more allegations were levelled out against Kumar, who lost his job as the armed battalion chief last week after his driver alleged that the officer’s daughter insulted and hit him while he was driving the official car. Women camp followers, whose job involves supporting the personnel in the armed reserve camp, have also complained against Kumar. They said that the officer treated them shabbily.
Kumar allegedly threatened to set his dog on the camp followers or even shoot them for minor lapses in work. A policeman working with the dog squad was recently bitten by Kumar’s pet dog. The official underwent months of treatment but the police top brass sought to cover up the issue.
Another policeman who was forced to do household chores by the officer landed in a soup when he went to the police mess to cook the meat he was told to buy for the dog. The other policemen protested the use of the office mess to cook for the dog.