Discontent among cops in Kochi over ‘tiresome’ work

Discontent is brewing among police personnel at the grass-roots level in the district over what they allege as tiresome duty arrangements, especially in containment zones.

Repeated pleas by police associations for implementing two turns during daytime shift in containment zones seem to have fallen on deaf ears, much to the frustration of uniformed men.

As of now, police personnel deployed in containment zones have to work continuously from morning to night with the change of duty effected only for overnight duty. Instead, the Kerala Police Association has been demanding two turns during the day from morning to afternoon and then from afternoon till night, which was in vogue during the lockdown.

“Many police personnel in the city are from neighbouring districts like Alappuzha and Kottayam and because of the work arrangement, most of them hardly get time to visit their families. Even if they somehow squeeze in time to do that they will be reaching home late in night and before long they will have to report back on duty,” said an association office-bearer.

When contacted, a senior police officer said that the force was so stretched even with the present duty arrangements that it would not be possible to heed the demand for two turns with the present manpower.

There is also discontent over not making enough men available from the Ernakulam-based KAP Battalion I stationed at Thripunithura and Pothanikkad for COVID-19 related duties with less than 100 deployed across the city and rural police limits combined. Repeated requests from the association and senior functionaries for more men from the battalion remain unheeded.

“A good chunk of them are deployed in neighbouring districts like Thrissur and the Kerala Police Academy there. Also, the manpower diverted from the battalion for industrial security force should have been recalled in the light of the extraordinary situation. Only some 25 men deployed for Kochi metro, which is yet to resume operations, have been recalled, which is far from adequate,” said another association office-bearer from the rural unit.

Even when a limited pool of 25 men were made available from the battalion initially, they were deployed on airport duty continuously and one of them tested positive, forcing the withdrawal of the entire batch. “It is not ideal to assign duty in excess of six hours in a stretch for critical jobs related to the pandemic since there is the likelihood of the persons increasingly getting lax with the safety protocol as the duty hours mount,” he said.

“In fact, the present level of police deployment at the airport is actually an extra duty necessitated by the pandemic and ideally there should have been reinforcements from the battalion, which didn’t happen,” he said.

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