Srinagar, Sep 21: Jammu and Kashmir Government is yet to comply with a Supreme Court directive on police reforms which says the investigating police shall be separated from the one dealing with law and order. This, the Apex Court says, would ensure “speedier investigation, better expertise and improved rapport of police with people.”
 The fourth Supreme Court directive, delineated in Prakash Singh case of 2006, says there must however be full coordination between the two wings. “The separation, to start with, may be effected in towns/urban areas which have a population of 10 lakhs or more, and gradually extended to smaller towns/urban areas also,” it says.
THE PROBLEMS
 According to police officials, duties performed by the staff of the police station include investigation, court attendance, process serving, beats and patrols, law and order, traffic, VIP duties, office work, sentry duties and miscellaneous work. The same staff, they say, performs duties related to law and order and investigation.
 “Both investigation and law and order are vital and specific police functions, which must be streamlined separately to run concurrently. However law and order and VIP bandobust in actual practice take priority over prevention and detection of crime. It often happens that investigations are stalled if there is a pressing law and order situation, or investigations divert officers' attention from law and order concerns. In effect criminal investigation work suffers,” says a former police officer, well-versed with the directive on police reforms. “Investigations are then poorly mounted, are exceedingly slow, done by inadequately trained and unspecialized staff and frequently subject to manpower deflection. This creates great dissatisfaction among the people who have been victims of crimes. If a certain portion of the staff is exclusively earmarked for investigation such as a corps of detectives, investigation of crimes would not be neglected to the extent that it is being neglected at present.”
 The SC judgment does not specify how the separation should take place in practice but only specifies that there must be full coordination between the two wings of the police. The Model Police Act, it says, provides a useful template in this regard. “It provides a workable model to separate the two wings without affecting the chain of command. It also seeks to enhance the efficiency of the investigation wing by providing for adequate scientific support to investigations, forensic sciences and qualified and properly trained manpower.”
The Model Police Act sets out the following system:
 At the police station level, it calls for creation of a Special Crime Investigation Unit headed by an officer not below the rank of Sub-Inspector of Police and comprising an appropriate strength of officers and staff. Members of the Unit shall investigate the following categories of cases: murder, kidnapping, rape, dacoity, robbery, dowry-related offences, serious cases of cheating, misappropriation and other economic offences, as notified by the Director General of Police. Police officers posted at the Special Crime Investigation Unit will work solely on investigation, unless exceptional circumstances require their working on another area as well. Such exception can only be granted with the written consent of the Director General of Police. They shall be posted at the Unit for a period ranging between three and five years.
 At the district level, it calls for creation of one or more Special Investigation Cell(s) at the headquarters of each police district under the direct control and supervision of the Additional Superintendent of Police. The cell will investigate offences of a more serious nature and other complex crimes, including economic crimes.
 And at the state level, the Model Police Act says the Criminal Investigation Department will investigate inter-state crimes, inter-district crimes, or crimes of otherwise serious nature as notified by the state government from time to time and as specifically entrusted to it by the Director General of Police.
J&K Compliance
 The government has in their April 2007 affidavit to the Supreme Court asked to be exempted from implementing this directive based on the specific security situation of the State.
 The government asserts that “due to the safety of the general public, separation between law and order can be counterproductive and disturb the existing security set up in the state.”
 Moreover, the Government asserts that most criminal activity is accompanied by law and order issues and vice versa. It argues that it would “be advisable to maintain status quo until normalcy returns. And, militancy related crime is accompanied by law and order issues, so there is no need to separate law and order from investigation.”
EXPERTS DIFFER
 According to the New Delhi-based Non-Governmental Organization—Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative [CHRI]— the Government uses the prevailing security situation in the state as an excuse to not fulfil its obligations towards the Supreme Court and the given reasons are again without merit. “It can be argued that especially in a State with insurgency it is imperative to separate law and order from investigation to ensure that crimes are properly investigated without the additional responsibility of maintenance of law and order,” says Maja Daruwala, Director of the CHRI, which has been pitching hard for police reforms in Jammu and Kashmir.
 Maja says serious specialization is needed in the police. “It is disgraceful that the method of choice is brutality and outright torture and illegal hostage taking whenever the police need to investigate. It is even more disgraceful that so little is allocated to specialization and that the police leadership has never repaired it but turned a blind eye and encourages brutality. The Court should not have had to make this kind of a directive but it has been going on too long to be left to the police for a cure. But again no one is listening,” she told Greater Kashmir.
 Pertinently, crime rate in Jammu and Kashmir just seems to be going up, with Crime Branch registering at least 900 complaints in the state since the start of this year.
 Official documents with Greater Kashmir reveal that since January 2011, the Crime Branch has registered 565 complaints in Kashmir province till ending August while it has got 307 complaints from Jammu province during this period. Besides, 91 PVs are under probe in Kashmir and 91 in Jammu as on date.
 “Given the rise in crime rate, it has become imperative for the state government to separate investigating police from law and order. Last year, during the public agitation, the entire police force was used for maintaining law and order. It hit investigation of cases. So it is better if the state complies with this directive,” said a former police officer.

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