COVID 19 Guidelines Make Basic Policing Difficult In State

Bhubaneswar : Since police stations are emergency service providers, absence of the staff due to illness and home isolation has adversely affected crime control and investigation. “During the lockdowns and the shutdowns, the number of crimes had come down. Following the unlock guidelines and easing of restrictions over the past few days, anti-socials are back in action. As many criminal cases as in pre-Covid days are being registered but we are left with only a handful of investigating officers to conduct patrolling, raids, arrests and investigation.
Already reeling from shortage of manpower, most police stations in the state have been finding it hard to carry out investigations and other basic policing as a large number of personnel have either been infected by Covid or gone into isolation after coming in contact with infected accused person.

Around 700 police personnel have so far been infected with the novel coronavirus across the state, whereas nearly 400 other cops of different police stations are currently in home isolation after they arrested Covid-infected accused over the past one week. At least 55 accused persons, who underwent compulsory RT-PCR test following their arrests in different districts, have tested positive in the past one week, alarming the police administration.

Most police stations were already functioning with nearly 20 per cent less staff than the sanctioned strength. After the Covid outbreak, several police stations have been left with only 50 per cent of the sanctioned staff.

To tackle shortage of manpower, the state government had recently rationalized 905 posts for police stations. But it may take several months for the situation to become better.