Commissioner of police Vivek Phansalkar has asked all 98 police stations in Mumbai to submit names and details of four categories of constables to him in a bid to stem corruption at police station level and improve police-public relationship.
Phansalkar has acted on this after his office received several complaints. Every police station in Mumbai has about 150 constables attached to it. The CP has specifically asked for information about constables who work as orderlies to senior police inspectors. These orderlies work as the administrative assistant to the senior PI and are considered their most trusted aide. There have been several complaints that many of these orderlies act as the go-between in bribery cases.
The second kind of constable that Phansalkar has sought information about are called the Mill Specials. These are men and women who patrol a particular area allotted to them on their bikes and work with a network of informers or khabris. They are widely perceived to be the ears and eyes of the senior police inspector.
The CP has also sought the names and service records of constables who are designated as In-charge Constables whose job it is to create the service rota for all the other constables attached to the police station. The In-charge constable commands great clout because of the power they have to allocate duties.
The fourth and the final category of constables that the CP has sought information about is the anti-terror cell constable. After 26/11, every police station has an ATC that comprises one police sub-inspector and 4 constables. It’s their job to keep a close watch on the goings on in their area, especially at hotels, lodges and places of worship. They would typically be the first to know if any suspicious person has checked into a hotel.
The CP has now sought their names, appointment dates, mobile numbers and length of their tenure. Earlier this year in May, when he was still commissioner of police, Sanjay Pandey had also acted against police personnel posted in these four categories. He had issued a circular saying all orderlies should be transferred if they have completed one year in the post.
“Such steps are taken to prevent corruption. All these constables play a dominant role in the affairs of a police station. Most of the senior inspectors’ work is handled by their orderlies. He or she is the first-person an outsider meets before getting to see the senior inspector of police station. If these officers are posted at one location for more than a year, and their powers are unchecked, they can develop a nexus with the notorious elements in the area,” said a senior IPS officer.
These personnel are also considered as points men for corruption at the police station level. There have been complaints of graft and bad behaviour at the police station level, he added.
In January this year, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials had arrested a constable, who worked as the orderly at the Azad Maidan Traffic division, and his senior inspector. The agency had recovered ₹5 lakhs from them. The constable had negotiated on behalf of the senior inspector and fixed a meeting with a certain tours and travel operator who wanted to park his buses in the area illegally.
On October 16th, a diamond trader was stopped by two constables from JJ Marg police station who asked him to show some documents and threatened to register a case against him and later took ₹10,000 from him. The trader took to Twitter and complained about the same which led to their arrest eventually. It is yet not clear what the CP will do after he gets the information on all the constables.