Stop painting us as the villains, police tell Bollywood

MUMBAI, JAN 5: Armed with the massive success of the Crime Prevention Week, Police Commissioner M N Singh has asked leading film producers...

MUMBAI, JAN 5: Armed with the massive success of the Crime Prevention Week, Police Commissioner M N Singh has asked leading film producers, directors as well as artistes to be more objective in picturising any scene involving a policeman or an officer of the force.

"If the industry feels it appropriate, the police can work out an arrangement by which glaring mistakes about police uniforms, roles of different police ranks and related issues could be explained to the directors,” Singh said in identical letters sent to film personalities.

Many senior police officers from all over the country had asked Singh to take up with the film industry the glaring mistakes associated with police that appeared in films and also convey their deep concern.

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Singh said during the Crime Prevention Week, prominent speakers in the symposia had pointed out that the police force was ridiculed and derogatorily depicted in films, and were often cast as the villains of the piece. “This has had a telling effect on the minds of children. On the concluding day, the children also expressed their views to a section of the representatives of the Fourth Estate. Such negative portrayals do not serve any social purpose. On the other hand, it has seriously impaired the credibility of the police and eroded public confidence in the its machinery,” he added.

Quite often, Singh said, police are shown as corrupt, insensitive, oppressive, ruthless and alcoholics. But, Singh added, films like Mission Kashmir and Sarfarosh had also projected a positive image of the force.