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by Jayampathy Jayasinghe

Political manoeuvring in respect of transfers of police officers will become a thing of the past, when the National Police Commission (NPC) begins to flex its muscle by exercising its powers and function vested in it.

The NPC has a herculean task of putting things right at the police department due to political interference with its administration for a long period of time, the NPC Chairman, Ranjit Abeysuriya said at a seminar last week at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute (SLFI) in Colombo. The seminar was organised by the Senior Retired Police Officers' Association.

Abeysuriya said that the NPC would take steps to insulate the police service from unlawful political interference. Many have already begun to question the criminal justice system owing to police incompetence. Many cases have ended up in acquittals due to the inefficiency of police officers. The discipline in the police service have deteriorated due to interference by corrupt politicians with links to underworld elements. The NPC, however, will not tolerate such interference in the future. The role of the NPC is to make every police officer a professional and, future recruitment, would strictly be based on merit.

Abeysuriya reiterated that in future police officers would not be eligible for promotion when there was an inquiry pending against the officer concerned. The officers would be eligible for such promotions, when exonerated.The National Police Commission is housed at the BMICH.

Although it was set up 3 months ago, other cadres to the commission have not been appointed so far thus hampering its work. The approved cadre is 24 officers. Already about 200 appeals sent to the NPC from the Police Department are being held up due to the lack of staff to handle such matters.

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