Nine police personnel, working as ‘chitha munshi’ with different police stations in the South district, were suspended and sent to district lines Wednesday after they failed to send police personnel to attend training classes at C R Park police station, where officials of the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) were waiting for them on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The nine had instead deployed the police personnel to Tughlakabad area, where protests and violence had broken out over the demolition of Ravidas Temple.
A senior police officer said the classes related to a matter in the Supreme Court over handling and collection of evidence. The court was recently informed that a mobile app had been developed by the Central Academy for Police Training in Bhopal and the BPRD for this purpose, and the police personnel were supposed to attend the classes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as part of a pilot project.
“Each SHO has nominated several police personnel for the classes. On Monday, many of them attended the class, but on Tuesday and Wednesday, all police personnel were deployed to deal with the temple demolition matter, so they skipped the classes,” a senior police officer said.
The classes were being taken by IPS-ranked officers, and the absence of personnel from the class was flagged to senior police officers, who then sought action on the matter.
The chitha munshis are tasked with assigning duties to police personnel on a daily basis, which is why they have been pulled up for their absence from the class, an officer said.