Date:04/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/04/stories/2008120458790300.htm

Kerala - Kochi

Drive to improve policing in rural district

Staff Reporter

KOCHI: The police are planning to review the cases registered for unnatural deaths that have occurred in the rural district during the last year.

“The goal is to check whether proper investigation was done on these cases. This is part of the ongoing drive to enhance the quality of policing,” said Superintendent of Police P. Vijayan.

The move comes after an increase in the number of unnatural deaths reported from the rural district.

The rural district police have been working on a special drive to improve policing, called Operation Periyar, which ended last month.

Preparing dossiers on all those who have a history of association with communal groups and also a detailed database of migrant labourers were part of the drive.

Given the volume of work involved, the drive had to be given more time. When the second phase was completed, two persons were arrested for terrorist-related activities, dossiers were opened for 160 persons with history of communal activities and personal details of nearly 1,500 migrant labourers were collected. The review of the final phase is being done at the DySP level now and final statistics will be made available only after that. Early analyses show that the drive has met nearly 80 per cent of the target set for the time-frame, said police sources. Other objectives listed under the third phase of Operation Periyar included comparison of undertrial cases with the First Information Report Index with CI offices ledgers and court records.

This is being done to rationalise the difference between cases recorded at police station records and court records.