Police chief talks of ‘Friendly policing’, subordinates act highhanded

A Karimnagar sub-inspector was suspended after assaulting a barber over a minor issue, raising questions on friendly policing. The incident, caught on CCTV, went viral, while other cases of alleged police misconduct have also come to light

Karimnagar: While the state police chief was promising to implement friendly policing, the ground-level staff is acting differently. Instead of winning the hearts of people with their attitude, some policemen still practise the old type of rude behaviour.

Laying the foundation for a modern police station in Rudrangi mandal on Friday, Director General of Police B Shivadhar Reddy promised to implement citizen-friendly policing in the state. However, the ground reality turned out to be different.

---

Surprisingly, the very next day of the DGP’s statement, a sub-inspector thrashed and abused a barber for a trivial reason. This bizarre incident took place in Khanpura of Karimnagar town on Saturday morning.

Karimnagar Three Town SI N Chaitanya Chander went to New Praja Hair Style salon for a shave at 7.30 am. A worker in the shop, Pagadala Ramu, asked the SI to sit in the chair to start his work. Instead of calling him ‘sir’, Ramu addressed him as ‘anna’.

Enraged over the worker’s manner of addressing him as “anna”, the police officer abused Ramu in filthy language and slapped him several times. The act of the SI was recorded on CCTV cameras installed in the salon. As the video went viral on local social media, police officials initiated action and suspended him.

In another incident that took place in July last year, a government employee from Choppadandi, Kadari Sravan Kumar, died by suicide, unable to tolerate alleged harassment by the then women police station Inspector.

In a selfie video recorded by him before taking the extreme step, Sravan Kumar held Karimnagar women police station CI Srilatha and his wife’s family members responsible for his death. In this regard, a case was also registered against the CI at Choppadandi police station.

In a fresh incident, Jammikunta SI Kadire Srikanth is facing charges of harassing a married woman, who became his friend on Facebook.

The police officer reportedly went to the woman’s house and abused her. On April 15, a case was also registered against him in the Warangal Police Commissionerate.