THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state police will have a permanent control room to track the punishment rolls of officers against whom department action was taken. Officers here will be tasked with collecting reports on such cops from the police districts every month. The legal position of each case will also be examined before a list of names is submitted to the senior officers for further action.
Only cops below the rank of SPs will undergo this scrutiny. The development comes in the wake of the success of a temporary control room set up at the police headquarters for the same. It was the 3-months-long procedure initiated by this temporary office that paved the way for the dismissal of the disgraced cop P R Sunu, who had faced three suspensions and a dozen departmental actions in the last decade.
The control room had examined 300-odd cases out of which about five dozen cases were handpicked for further action. Sources said many of the cases were related to domestic issues, drunken driving, road accidents etc.
Such cases were removed from the list and only serious offences were taken up for further action.
It was from about 50-odd names that the police team finally prepared a list of 10 cops, against whom the department is exploring the options of summary dismissal under the relevant sections of the Kerala Police Act.
The sources in the department said the top officials are preparing files on these cops named. The final action will be decided by the state police chief. “It took two months to just prepare the file on Sunu. It will be a similar time-consuming process for the other cops on the list. We have selected the worst officers, who are fit to be removed from the rolls. But we have to be diligent so that we won’t face any legal upset later,” said an officer.