Just a day ago, a ‘One day police-media seminar cum workshop’ was organized by the Manipur Police Department along with the All Manipur Working Journalist’s Union (AMWJU). The theme of the seminar-workshop was apparently “How Police and Media can work in tandem to deliver better justice to the people” but not many would have looked at the irony over the nature of the wording for while the media and police can indeed work together in tandem, it is neither the duty of the police or the media to deliver justice. Both parties can facilitate and aid in the path to justice but it is the judiciary that dons the role of ensuring justice. If the main intent of the State Police Department is indeed interested and committed to facilitate the process towards delivering justice, it can do so by improving its abysmal track record of pending criminal cases as reflected by the 2012 report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The report had put Manipur on the top spot with regard to pending criminal cases: with 86.7 per cent. While the step taken by the Manipur Police Department in organizing a public seminar cum workshop with the media fraternity follows closely on similar outings taken by the Central Armed Forces and the State Government, what needs to be critiqued and analyzed is whether seminars of such nature with ‘friendly’ themes are mere public relations exercises or a process undertaken with a well planned out strategy to work out ways and means to arrive at areas of understanding and action plans. It is after all, not too uncommon to hear of an endless round of ‘Manipur: Way Forward’ seminars and workshops where papers are presented but not many gets to see any interactive process even during the course of the seminar, much less see any action being translated on the ground. This does not bode well, for seminars and workshops not only involve financial resources but are a well proved forum for discussions, debates, issue solving and creating consensus and action plans with time frames. If on the other hand, those organizing workshops and seminars get only into the cosmetic realm, nothing of import can be ever achieved. Those serious enough, will start with intense ground work before embarking on the actual seminars beginning with identifying key areas that need to be discussed and then to look at who should speak on the said topics. Then comes in the area of structuring in the seminar/workshop flowchart where topics lead on from one to the other and marking a time span for interactive sessions and a slot for recommendations.
For the Manipur state Police which says there will be more such seminars where the public will be part, the Department will do well by acknowledging that there is not much respect or belief from the public when the word ‘police’ is mentioned. The reasons are simple: on one hand are the backlog of cases that stay unsolved, on the other are the many cases of police personnel being found involved in varied crimes in the state ranging from murder, kidnapping, extortion, vehicle lifting, rapes and sexual assault etc. There are then the cases of fake encounter cases along with public incidents of high-handedness, harassment to the public and bribe taking that gets tagged with the track record of the state police. Perhaps if the state Police force is serious and willing to get the public involved in carrying out its role, it could begin by getting on larger public interaction forums like a Facebook page which is something that’s already being done in various states of the country. For those not on the internet loop, the Department can begin a toll free line which will accept complaints against police personnel and make the action taken public while also ensuring that the complainant is not harassed. After all, the word ‘media’ is not just confined to print and electronic mediums but includes various social and public interface. That the just concluded seminar-workshop had paper presentations on an array of issues ranging from issues of mob justice, crime against women, psychotropic substances and relations between media and police is interesting but is totally meaningless till there are definite commitments emerging out of the discussions on what is to be done to overcome them.