Police Reforms: India
Police Reforms: Too Important to Neglect, Too Urgent to Delay

Police Reform: An Exchange of Experiences from South Asia

CHRI held a regional roundtable conference on South Asian policing in New Delhi, India, on the 23rd and 24th March 2007. Fifty representatives attended the conference from countries such as India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Delegates hailed from across government, civil society, media, human rights institutions and police organizations and met to discuss and debate the trends, commonalities and challenges of policing in South Asia.

The roundtable provided delegates with the opportunity to plan for higher levels of police accountability and reform throughout the South Asian region. The Indian Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Shivraj Patil, opened the conference and presented the Inaugural Address in which he emphasised the importance of police reform in South Asia. Participants agreed that “it is the duty of all South Asian governments to provide their populations with safety and security in accordance with the rule of law and human rights. Present policing in the region does not ensure this.” They also agreed that meaningful police reform cannot happen without public consultation.

The delegates proposed several points of action. They called for governments to immediately initiate a serious process of systemic, transparent police reform and to make a strong public commitment to working towards policing that upholds human rights and democratic norms and values. Delegates also agreed that police reform should include credible selection, transfer and promotion arrangements for police, strengthened accountability mechanisms, better performance evaluation and monitoring and training and continual retraining of police personnel.

The program for the 2007 South Asian roundtable conference is available here, while the concluding statement can be found here. The press release can be accessed here and the conference report can be downloaded here.

A list of papers presented at the roundtable is available below:

Police reform and debates in India: Selected recommendations from the National Police Commission
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative

Prakash Singh and Others vs. Union of India and Others, 22 September 2006 & 11 January 2006: Compliance with the Supreme Court Directives on Police Reform
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative

Police-Executive Relationship in Pakistan
Dr Muhammad Shoaib Suddle, Director General, National Police Bureau, Pakistan

Sri-Lanka: What police reform initiatives are possible within a dysfunctional system?
Basil Fernando, Director, Asian Human Rights Commission

Towards pro-women and child-friendly policing in Bangladesh: Our experiences
Professor Israt Shamim, President, Centre for Women and Children Studies

Police Accountability in the Maldives
Aminath Najeeb, Human Rights Association of the Maldives (registration denied since July 2004)

Regretting what might have been: A critique of the National Police Commission of Sri Lanka
Kishali Pinto Jayawardena, lawyer and legal consultant/columnist, The Sunday Times, Colombo; Deputy Director and head, Legal Unit, Law and Society Trust, Colombo

Policing in the Maldives
Mohamed Jinah, Maldives Police Service

Ingredients for a good police/executive relationship
Philip Stenning, Professor of Criminology, Centre for Criminological Research

Problems with policing in Northern Ireland
Maggie Beirne, Director, Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ)

A list of Power Point presentations from the conference can be accessed below:

Civil Society: integral or marginal to police reforms
Patricia Mukhim

Police-Executive Relationship in Bangladesh
Md. Mokhlesur Rahman, Deputy Inspector General Principal, Police Academy, Bangladesh

Police Reform Initiatives
Human Rights Association of the Maldives and Native Operators on Rights (NOOR)

Police Reform Initiatives in Bangladesh
N.B.K Tripura, Additional Inspector General, Bangladesh Police and National Project Director, Police Reform Program

Police Reforms: Supreme Court Directions
Prakash Singh, formerly Director General BSF, DGP Assam and DGP UP

Police Reforms in Pakistan
Mukhtar Ahmad Ali, Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives, Pakistan

Police-Executive Relationship in India
Kamal Kumar, IPS (Rtd)

Towards Pro-Women and Child Friendly Policing in Bangladesh: Our Experiences
Professor Ishrat Shamim, President, Center for Women and Children Studies, Dhaka

For more information about CHRI’s work in South Asia contact Sanjay Patil.