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| The signboard outside Shahabad DIG’s office. Picture by Sanjay Choudhary |
Patna, March 28: Holi is over but the state police seem to be playing the fool with colours.
The notice and signboards put up at the police stations and official residences of senior officers have been painted wrongly.
According to the police manual — the gospel for the force — the top left side of notices should be painted red and the bottom right should be blue.
But in the offices of senior officers like deputy inspector-general, Shahabad range, superintendent of police, Rohtas and Dehri police station, the colours have been exchanged.
“Yahan sab kuch ulta-pulta hain (everything here is topsy-turvy),” said a police officer at Sasaram in Rohtas.
Even Patna is no exception.
According to the police manual, volume 3, page number 208, rule number 75: “Every police station shall be provided with a notice board and a signboard. This should be hung in the verandah in a conspicuous place and firmly affixed to two strong posts on the side of the public road. The name of the respective police station should be written in Devnagari script in block letters.”
The notices and sign boards have been put up but their colour coordination is incorrect.
A source said though senior officers have noticed the error, they are mostly apathetic about it.
“It is a human error. It needs to be rectified,” said Raj Vardhan Sharma, the additional director-general (headquarters).
Former general secretary of the Bihar Police Association K.K. Jha said copies of the police manual were not available for the cops.
“The copies of the police manual have not been printed at the Gulzarbagh government printing press since 1992. As a result, there is scarcity of copies of the police manual in Bihar,” he said.
Jha added that newly recruited police officers hardly go through the police manual, which guides the entire police force.
“Newly appointed sub-inspectors had to purchase the copies of the police manual from the open market at different rates varying from Rs 250 to Rs 800 at the time of their training,” said Jha.
The manual printed at the government press is made available to the officers of the force at a meagre price of Rs 15.