Discontent is brewing among grassroots-level police personnel over a new set of guidelines for police stations across the Ernakulam range covering Kottayam, Alappuzha, Idukki, and Ernakulam Rural with effect from next month.
The guidelines were issued by the Ernakulam Range DIG Putta Vimaladitya at the monthly crime review meeting held at the Range office on September 19. Among the guidelines that has evoked the stiffest protest was the one regarding rooms in police stations meant for personnel to relax and rest.
The meeting attributed the shabby maintenance of police stations largely to the unregulated expansion of restrooms, which in some police stations occupied about half the entire space. Some restrooms featured more than 10 cots as in a dormitory, had uniforms hung around like in a dormitory, and shoes scattered around. Some stations had been turned into a place of stay where clothes, even innerware, were washed and put up to dry, accused the minutes of the meeting.
