Demand for police patel system

SURAT, Dec 30: The Gujarat Police Patel Union and the city unit of the Communist Party of India submitted memoranda to the district colle...

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SURAT, Dec 30: The Gujarat Police Patel Union and the city unit of the Communist Party of India submitted memoranda to the district collector and city police commissioner on Wednesday, demanding reintroduction of the posts of police patels in villages of the state and recognising police patels as regularised state government employees. The memoranda were submitted at the end of a rally held in the city as a mark of protest against the state government.

The police patel system was abolished by the state government through a notification issued in 1989 and put into force since 1990. The notification, abolished the police patel system — a post created to maintain law and order since British times — except in Dangs district, where it still exits. The sarpanchs and talatis of villages have since been given the work of police patels.

Talking to Express Newsline, President of the Gujarat Police Patel Union (GPPU) Vijay Shenmare said, “This is what we’ve been asking the state government time and again. If it finds the system working perfectly fine in Dangs, why not in the other 20,000 villages of the state”.

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He said a delegation of the police patels had met Shankersinh Vaghela, who had assured them that the system would be introduced again, but the Keshubhai Patel government had turned a deaf ear to their demands.

The memorandum regretted that though the police patels were for the past 18 years making legitimate demands that included a rise in pay scales and other arrears, instead of addressing them, the government abolished the system. The police patels had lodged a civil application in the Gujarat High Court in 1994. Thereafter, the HC had ruled that the police patels be paid higher wages and arrears. However, it did not rule the re-introduction of the police patel system.

The memorandum, while alleging that the BJP government had failed completely to check crimes in villages as well as cities, demanded that the system be reintroduced.