250 Policemen Face Action For Refusing To Give Guard Of Honour To Rajnath Singh, 23 More Shave Their Heads

The Rajasthan police on 17 October has ordered departmental enquiry about the 250 policemen who went on mass leave, reports The Times of India. This group of policemen also include those who had refused to give a guard of honour to visiting Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

The Minister was on a brief visit to Jodhpur to inaugurate a regional training centre for the Intelligence Bureau (IB). As the policemen refused to report to duty, they were replaced by other policemen.

Additional Director General of Police ML Lathar too had to face a similarly embarrassing situation as the policemen refused to give him the guard of honour when he visited the Jodhpur Police Commissionerate on 16 October.

Additional DGP (law and order) N R K Reddy has reportedly said that most of the policemen who had gone on 'unsanctioned’ leave in Jodhpur and Sriganganagar have reported back for duty on 17 October.

Adding to their protest, 23 more policemen in Bharatpur got their heads tonsured after six of their colleagues were transferred to police lines (where they would not be assigned any law and order enforcement job but only official job in the thana) for allegedly protesting over the pay cut rumour.

The background

The policemen have been protesting against the alleged news of the salary cut that was making rounds in the police circle. The rumour had that constabulary’s pay scale would be reduced from the existing Rs 24,000 to Rs 19,000 per month.

Their protest was previously limited only to boycotting the mess facility and wearing black ribbons during duty hours.

Their demands are as follows:

To stop the alleged cut in salary.

• Their salaries need to be paid like that of the central government employees according to the Seventh Pay Commission.
• The hard duty allowance should be made 50% of the salary or the duty hours should be restricted to 8.
• The mess allowance needs to be at least Rs 4000.
• The mess allowance and the hard duty allowance should be made income-tax free.
• The qualification of the constable should be made at a minimum of Class 12 or graduation.
• The constable should be upgraded to Third Grade.
• The head constable should be upgraded to Second Grade.
  

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Director General of Police (DGP) Ajit Singh had on 16 October issued a letter to the constables asking them to ignore rumours. “For the past few days, there have been rumours spreading about salary cut. PHQ has raised the matter with the state government, and I want to assure everyone that the matter is being looked into by the government,” Singh said in the letter.

The state Home Minister, Gulab Chand Kataria, had also clarified that the proposal of the salary cut is resting with the Cabinet and that there should be any confusion about this.

He added that necessary actions against erring policemen would be taken. The police headquarters have asked for the entire list of policemen who were involved in the protest.

The Times of India reports that ‘non-departmental’ sources have been responsible for spreading the rumour about the salary cut.

The police officials claim that the protest that was mainly centred around Jodhpur and Sriganganagar is under control now.

The state police have now directed that all police lines must be kept clean to help provide constables better living conditions.