oppn parties Risk Perception, Not Paying Capacity, Should Be Considered For Providing Security Cover To Private Citizens

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  • The Indian envoy in Bangladesh was summoned by the country's government over the breach in the Bangladesh mission in Agartala
  • Bank account to soon have 4 nominees each
  • TMC and SP stayed away from the INDIA bloc protest over the Adani issue in the Lok Sabha
  • Delhi HC stops the police from arresting Nadeem Khan over a viral video which the police claimed promoted 'enmity'. Court says 'India's harmony not so fragile'
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  • Stock markets continue their winning streak on Tuesday: Sensex jumps 597 points to 80845 and Nifty gains 181 points to 24457
  • Asian junior hockey: Defending champions India enter the finals by beating Malaysia 3-1, to play Pakistan for the title
  • Chess World title match: Ding Liren salvages a sraw in the 7th game which he almost lost
  • Experts speculate whether Ding Liren wants the world title match against D Gukesh to go into tie-break after he let off Gukesh easily in the 5th game
  • Tata Memorial Hospital and AIIMS have severely criticized former cricketer and Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu for claiming that his wife fought back cancer with home remedies like haldi, garlic and neem. The hospitals warned the public for not going for such unproven remedies and not delaying treatment as it could prove fatal
  • 3 persons died and scores of policemen wer injured when a survey of a mosque in Sambhal near Bareilly in UP turned violent
  • Bangladesh to review power pacts with Indian companies, including those of the Adani group
D Gukesh is the new chess world champion at 18, the first teen to wear the crown. Capitalizes on an error by Ding Liren to snatch the crown by winning the final game g
oppn parties
Risk Perception, Not Paying Capacity, Should Be Considered For Providing Security Cover To Private Citizens

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2020-10-28 20:18:27

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

The Supreme Court has rightly not agreed with the Bombay High Court view that Mumbai police should provide high-level security cover  to anyone who is willing to pay for it. If this was the case, the police would be reduced to being the personal bodyguards of the rich and famous. That, obviously, is not the prime task of the Mumbai, or any other, police force - at best it can be an additional and important task. But if paying capacity was to be the main criterion for providing security cover, then the crime prevention and law enforcing tasks will suffer.

The Supreme Court has rightly said that risk perception should be the main criteria for deciding who deserves to be provided what level of security. That should be the basis of all such decisions. Anyone who is not at a risk from extraneous sources but needs to prevent the public from getting too close for comfort can always deploy his or her own private security, as any rich and famous person worth his salt does nowadays.

Tasking the police, upon payment, to 'protect' private citizens can be disastrous. There is no dearth of people who would be willing to pay to be protected by policemen and if the risk perception is not taken into account, many battalions of the local police forces would be deployed on this 'comfort' duty. Since these duties will not be permanent, it is obvious that the police force will not recruit more personnel but would deploy them from the existing pool. That would mean that they will then get lesser manpower for their regular duty of preventing crime, enforcing the law and protecting the ordinary citizen.

As it is, the police force in all major Indian cities and towns suffers from shortage of personnel. Now, if the existing constables and officers are put on duty to protect those who can pay for their services, the common man will suffer. Risk perception, backed by evidence of threat, must be the only criteria for providing security and periodic review must be done to downgrade or do away with the security cover once the threat perception reduces.