Delhi police tap Northeast for potential recruits

TT, New Delhi, Jan. 3: Delhi police commissioner B.S. Bassi has written to the police chiefs of the eight northeastern states asking them to send aspiring recruits from their region to be inducted into the capital's force.

The move is part of a Union home ministry plan to equip the Delhi police to deal better with the continuing hate crimes against people from these eight states.

Such outstation recruitment would be a special provision relating to Delhi and the Northeast, for no mechanism now exists for sending would-be police recruits from one state to join the force of another.

A senior Delhi officer said the idea was to recruit 60 men and women every year from each of the eight Northeast states - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.

Yesterday, the Centre had said it was "considering" two new penal code provisions to punish racial discrimination and racial insults, recommended by the M.P. Bezbaruah committee as a safeguard for migrants from the northeast.

Home minister Rajnath Singh had added that 160 young men and women from the Northeast would join the capital's police, echoing an earlier statement by his junior Kiren Rijiju. The Bezbaruah panel had recommended 600 such recruitments.

The Delhi police now have only 39 personnel of northeastern origin. Of them, 10 are IPS officers on deputation. The rest, mostly constables, are migrants who were already settled in Delhi when they were recruited.

A member of the North-Eastern Residents Welfare Association said the latest move would help boost the migrants' confidence.

"Considering the spate of crimes, girls and working women from the Northeast feel very vulnerable here," she said. "But the very sight of policemen from the Northeast would instil a sense of confidence and encourage the women to interact with the police."

She added that these cops would be able to understand the migrants' day-to-day problems better and deal with their complaints more effectively.

Bassi acknowledged the need to recruit more police from the Northeast because of the "recurring crimes against northeastern people in the capital".

"It will also help us showcase India's unity in diversity and reach out to people from those states and make them feel safe," he told The Telegraph.

Bassi's force has launched a helpline (1093), a Facebook page and 22 WhatsApp groups for migrants from the Northeast so they can contact the police immediately in times of distress.

Some 85,000 people from the Northeast live in Delhi and its neighbourhood. More than 5,000 boys and girls from the region come to the capital for studies and training every year, and many northeastern women work in theprivate sector, including BPOs, here. The community has faced repeated racial attacks and insults and its women have been subjected to sexual assaults.