Proud to have changed people’s perception about Nagpur Police

                                   INTERVIEW

By Dheeraj Fartode

Sense of pride of his 17-month tenure as Commissioner of Police is visible in the eyes of Shardaprasad Yadav when he says, “I have changed perception in people’s mind that police cannot not ‘touch’ criminals. This change in perception has led us to win the confidence of citizens and establish police-people connect.” 

This observation of the city’s top cop who is nearing the end of his tenure and is about to proceed on promotion to Mumbai, makes an altogether different sense in Nagpur’s special context. There were times when the city enjoyed a dubious distinction that top cops did not want to have even short tenures here, and perhaps for justifiable reasons, as some of them used to state. In the case of Shardaprasad Yadav, things have been altogether different. Despite his absence from the posting for personal reasons for some time last year, he has earned for the Police force a reputation that it is no longer a passive force. No matter the partly reactionary nature of the work, the city police now are being appreciated for their positive people connect. As he elaborates upon this, Shardaprasad Yadav’s voice emits certain confidence about having done his job to the best of his ability, and having enhanced the abilities of the Police force. 

Commissioner of Police Shardaprasad Yadav making
a point during interaction at his office on Wednesday.

After taking reins of Nagpur City Police on April 17, 2015, Yadav faced too many challenges -- right from dispirited staff to bad patch of his own health. The Nagpur Police Commissionerate had received flak from all corners of society for worst policing till October 2015 when Yadav was on medical leave. Yadav proved his mettle as IPS officer when he returned with a bang and launched heavy crackdown against criminals. Many small and big players from Napgur’s crime world were put behind bars resulting into drastic and positive change in crime statistic. The number of cases of murders, robberies, chain snatching went down almost by 35%. Even street crimes got reduced, which is visible not only on the street but also in statistic. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis himself patted Yadav and his team for great sense of policing. 

While interacting with ‘The Hitavada’, the Police Commissioner, who has been transferred as Additional Director General (Law and Order), touched upon many aspects of policing including mentalities of police staff, criminals and citizens and appealed that the Nagpurians should not allow muscle-men to take dominate their collective mind. “Let’s maintain police-people connect all along,” Yadav says.  

Commissioner of Police Shardaprasad Yadav 

Drawing upon his experience as Nagpur CP, Yadav says, “After taking charge as Police Commissioner, I have noticed that public lost faith in the policing system.” After making the statement, Yadav elaborates the reasons -- “This happened due to lackluster attitude developed in the field staff. The cops were not responding to public grievances and this did not happen in just a year or so. It happened over a long period. As a result, people were approaching muscle-men, criminals, political leaders to settle their grievances.” 

Yadav, who was chief of State Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for around three years, has studied the mindset of Nagpur police staff. He further explains that when people visited police stations with their grievances, the police station officers would often discourage them: ‘Why are you lodging complaint against that man? He is big criminal. He could take revenge’. This mentality of ground level staff of saving criminals had created problem. After learning the mindset, Yadav gave strict direction to his sub-ordinates that this non-sense would not be tolerated. He boosted the morale of the force in every crime meeting and took review of preventive action and made police station officer accountable for every serious crime.

On unwilling officers 

Yadav, is a 1986 IPS batch officer with vast experience of policing. He has observed unwillingness of working among the police officers at Nagpur. “Many Police Inspectors (PIs), APIs, PSIs working at Nagpur are only eager to get away from the city. Those who are transferred have their own great difficulties and those who are posted here come quite unwillingly. Hence, they take a year to settle down in the system and then pass two years with no productivity. This was the problem in Nagpur police. I asked them to change their mental make-up. If you have come here, then you have to work,” says the Police Commissioner. 

Yadav says, “The police officers must understand that this is their duty and they should enjoy it. When we have joined the services, we know that we cannot celebrate holidays. Then why do the officers complain about not getting holidays and are not enjoying life?” 

He calls all these excuses as meaningless talk and adds that they should learn from people working in the Army deployed on border posting for years. He also calls Maharashtra police a great force among all the state police forces for providing good infrastructure and working conditions for staff and offering highest salaries to constabulary across the nation.

Take action, don’t think about the section 

For Yadav, responding to public grievances has utmost importance. His style of functioning is -- Take action, don’t think about section. Analysing his tenure, Yadav says “When we ask officers to initiate action against someone, the officers give us so many excuses. I told them ‘leave it to me. If action is needed, then you must take that specific action and then search for section to suit the need,” states the Police Commissioner. “We can get the section from the book. We are not lawyers, if we apply wrong section then the court would show us the right section in law. If someone is molesting a woman and police will search for section, then what is the use of being their,” Yadav exclaims. 

We need proactive policing, not reactive 

After career of 30 years of service, Yadav feels that “Police should be a proactive force and not a reactive one. The reactive policing is in our our blood and it has become part of our work-culture. Policemen do not go on their beats or meet people in peace time. At Nagpur, this had gone to such an extent that police were not registering complaints,” commented Yadav. Due to this type of policing, small-time criminals became big and created perception among the citizens that the police could not ‘touch’ them. 

IPS S P Yadav 

After learning this, Yadav ordered the Deputy Commissioners of Police (DCPs) to prepare records about background of criminals and initiate stern preventive action. “Many criminals were booked under Maharasthra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act (MPDA). Despite that preventive actions including sections 107, 109 CRPC were extensively used and bonds were signed by criminals in the courts of ACPs. After violation of bonds, the goons were sent to jail. This massive crack-down resulted into changing perception in people’s mind and police gained confidence of citizens. 

Launch of Distress Call Response Management System (DCRMS), use of social media to establish police-people connect also bore fruits. “We have Whatsapp group of vigilant citizens at police station levels. Now, the citizens are interacting with police sharing information with police,” Yadav claimed with great sense of pride. 

Too much of sweet talk is dangerous

Yadav is famous in the Maharashtra police for his straight forward attitude. Even the then Director General of Police (DGP) Sanjeev Dayal also himself explained the Chief Minister about his strict culture of policing when Yadav was posted at Nagpur. Yadav defines it as a culture of forces and says, “being too sweet a person is always dangerous for a cop. Officer with straight forward attitude sometimes may hurts some people but they soon realise after certain period that the officer was right.”  It may be mentioned that a section of officers was very upset over Yadav’s straight forward attitude. 

SP Yadav

Yadav also uses a term -- “the horse who dances in the marriage can also run in the race. When I took charge, the police were dancing in front of marriage. I asked them to stop and start running. You may not come first but you have to complete the race,” Yadav elaborated in his no-sense style. “Instead of being a horse who is made to perform dance tricks in a marriage procession, it is better to be a race horse. Our image is in our own hands only and this perception was outlined to the force after taking over reins of Nagpur City Police, states S P Yadav in his soldierly accent.