In Bhopal, rule book in a malkhana and a race against time as new criminal laws kick in

Police stations such as this one in Old Bhopal are at the forefront of this overhaul considering that a bulk of their work – from filing First Information Reports to chargesheets — will come up against the new laws. Armed with only a day’s training, police officers and the junior staff, from inspectors to constables, are now tasked with navigating the complexities of these sweeping legal reforms.

Exhausted from his night shift and with hours to go for the rollout of the new laws, Inspector Kashiram Kushwaha asks his staff for the hard copies of the new laws. When told that they are locked up in the police malkhana, his frustration boils over: “I haven’t bathed, I haven’t read the new law books. All night I was working on the chain snatching case and now I don’t have time to study the new laws… Why is the malkhana locked? When will we study?”

The person in charge of the malkhana, Asif Khan, who too hasn’t read the books, arrives at 2 p.m., after attending to his sick son at a hospital nearby. Dodging Kushwaha’s glare, Khan rushes to the malkhana to retrieve the new law books, which are stored next to tear gas shell launchers. But by now, Kushwaha has left for another duty. The books are locked away again, waiting to be opened on July 1.

For over a month, personnel of the Bhopal Police have been training at the city’s police academy and the two police control rooms, where they have been attending marathon four-hour daily lectures — a mix of PowerPoint presentations, lectures, Q&As, and, if time permits, mock tests on filing FIRs using the new laws.

DGP Sudhir Saxena told The Indian Express that so far, “60,000 officers and other employees of the Madhya Pradesh police have been trained on the new laws”.

He has ordered for comparative charts of the old and new laws to be sent to each police officer in the state and for each investigating officer (IO) to be given a hard copy of the new laws.

One of the officers at the thana says he isn’t sure if the personnel are prepared for the challenge. “We had one training session. Our station has a shortage of 46 officers and we are stretched thin. The sessions were good, but our staff had to take time off their duties. They didn’t even get practical experience. Staff from other police stations were trained on dummy FIRs; we just listened to the lectures. At this rate, we will take at least six months to learn,” he said.

Another policeman says he is yet to read the new laws. “I am retiring in two months… why should I bother? I would have liked to read the books in detail, but what’s the point?,” he says.

Constable Pawan Damar, who is in his late 20s, is the station’s computer operator. He has a smartphone and a smart watch and is one of the few tech-savvy officers in this police station. “Unlike the IPC, the new laws are not scattered and you can find them easily. But the senior staff don’t want to learn. Over 50 per cent of them are old and many are approaching their retirement age. The new laws require the use of some technology and apps and they are reluctant to learn,” he says.

Yasmin Zehra, Additional SP at the Police Academy (Bhopal) where many of the training sessions were held, agrees that many of the senior personnel nearing retirement showed a lack of interest in learning the new provisions. “We are focussed on training IOs who are below the age of 55 and those who are field officers. Our target group was around 80,000 police personnel. The new laws are not complicated and they will learn easily once they begin applying it practically,” she says.

Zehra says the training sessions will continue over the next few months. “We could not cover everyone as the staff was deputed for the Lok Sabha elections,” she says, adding there are 302 instructors across the state who have been roped in to teach the new laws.

The instructors mainly relied on comparative charts which were shared in soft copy format several months ago to the senior officers of the district. However, the hard copies of the new provisions were sent to all police stations just a few days ago.

According to the Madhya Pradesh police statistical data book 2022, there are around 1,117 police stations across the state’s 52 districts. On an average, for every 1,000 crimes committed, there are 402 policemen available.

Officers at the Kotwali police station and some of the officers conducting the training sessions say that among the most common doubts police personnel have is whether the new laws or the old will be used if a crime is committed before July 1 but is a “continuing crime”.

Zehra, the Additional SP at the Police Academy, explained to The Indian Express that in such a situation, the case will be registered under both the IPC and BNS.

Besides, there are questions about the procedure to be followed while videographing evidence and presenting it before a magistrate. Under Section 105 of the BNSS, any search or seizure at the crime scene and statements of witness and the victim must be videographed and forwarded “without delay” to the District Magistrate, Sub-divisional Magistrate or first-class Judicial Magistrate.

A 52-year-old official at the thana shows his smartphone that has a cracked screen. “As per the new law, I have to record any evidence that I seize. In case there is a law-and-order situation, it will be difficult. Most cases collapse in court because of not following proper procedures. We don’t have a videographer and I don’t know how to shoot videos,” he says.

Acknowledging the technological gap, Additional SP Zehra says the “police headquarters has initiated the process of acquiring an advanced toolkit for the police officers, which will include high-end smartphones for the investigating officers”.

An SI rank officer at the Kotwali thana says that when some of his juniors come up to him with doubts on the new law, he finds himself struggling for answers. “I don’t have proper educational qualifications and don’t understand most parts of the law… See, when I was young, I learnt the IPC sections the hard way – from all the scolding I got from my seniors. But this time, even the seniors are confused. We will need legal representatives to sit with us for the first few months before the documents go to court,” he says.