Delhi Police don’t have enough Muslim officers

Union Home Secretary R K Singh’s announcement in early June — that the government has approved the 2005 Rajinder Sachar Committee’s recommendation of deploying at least one Inspector or Sub-Inspector (SI), who is a Muslim, in each police station in Muslim-majority areas — has put the Delhi Police in a spot because they don’t have the "requisite numbers” to implement the directive.

When his comments were sought before he retired on June 30 as Delhi Police Commissioner, B K Gupta said the "system” was already in place in the Capital and there have been efforts to deploy at least one Muslim Inspector or SI at all police stations in key Muslim-majority areas.

But they have been finding it tough to get adequate number of personnel and officers to fully implement the Sachar panel’s guidelines because Muslim youth hardly apply for jobs in police.

"The representation of Muslims is not satisfactory. I wanted to motivate them to join us. The community feels at ease with them. That is why we have IPS officers Taj Hassan (Joint CP) and Aslam Khan (Additional DCP) in Central district,” said Gupta.

Even before the government accepted the Sachar Committee recommendation on police reforms, the MHA had asked the Delhi Police to conduct a census of Muslim officers in each district. The feedback prepared by the DCPs were sent to police headquarters to make a final report. (...)