Tamil Nadu 12th in recruiting Muslims as cops

CHENNAI: Muslims constitute 5.56% of Tamil Nadu’s population, but the community accounts for only 1.82% of the state’s one lakh-odd strong police force, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau statistics.
Tamil Nadu ranks 12th among states in providing employment to Muslims in police force. Top of the list is Jammu and Kashmir, where 54% of police personnel are Muslims. In the undivided Andhra Pradesh, second on the list, 9% of police personnel are Muslims.Tamil Nadu had passed a legislation to give 3.5% reservation to Muslims in its police force. But it is yet to implement it in letter and spirit, said a senior police officer. Of the 1.01 lakh police personnel in the state, only 1,846 are Muslims. Sikkim is last on the list with just nine Muslims in its 4,279-strong police force.
Tamil Nadu has been fortunate not to have any major communal flare-up since violence broke out in Coimbatore in the wake of the serial blasts there in 1998. Nevertheless, there have been several communal murders in the state. In the last two years alone, 14 Sangh Parivar leaders were killed for communal reasons. Al-Umma, which gained notoriety with the Coimbatore serial blasts, is said to be involved in all these murders. “The special investigation division (SID), which is part of the Special Branch CID (SBCID) wing and the anti-fundamentalist wings attached to law and order police in various cities and districts have been busting terror networks,” a police officer said.
Some experts are of the view that recruiting more Muslims into the state police would help counter the influence of extremists on Muslim youth. “Providing reservation in police force is a welcome move. It will help the force in fighting terrorism,” said R Ramrajan, retired inspector general.
Following a DGPs’ conference in Delhi in 2012, a high-level committee comprising DGPs of Tamil Nadu, Maharastra, Uttar Pradesh and a senior IB officer from Mumbai was formed to study the role of minorities (Muslims) in police force. Maharashtra DGP Sanjeev Dayal, who led the committee, submitted the report at the DGPs’ conference in November 2013. It discussed ways to handle issues concerning minority communities. Among the issues that were raised was the inability of many Muslims to join police force as they do not study any regional language in school. They study only Urdu, and that does not help them join the force in many states.
“The recommendations of the high-level committee have been forwarded to the Centre for its consideration,” said a senior police officer.