Unhappy over Covid-19 safeguards Kolkata cops protest, allegedly attack DCP

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A Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) was allegedly attacked in Kolkata by a group of the police’s elite combat force who demanded safeguards against the novel coronavirus. Media reports said that cops alleged that the barrack they were lodged at was not sanitized after a sub-inspector tested positive there and that it was found that three more had tested positive for the virus later.

An officer from the Kolkata police said that no one had been booked and an inquiry had been ordered in the matter. He said, “An investigation is underway. There can be disappointment among the policemen regarding their duty schedule, but no acts of indiscipline will be tolerate.”

It was said that the constables became enraged when they were given a duty roster for the coronavirus and Cyclone Amphan on Tuesday night and a group of 500 combat force personnel started agitating in front of the Police Training School (PTS). They were more frayed regarding this dual responsibility of manning containment zones and evacuating people to save them from Cyclone Amphan.

Listening to the commotion due to the protest, DCP Colonel Nevendra Singh Paul, who lives in the PTS premises with his family, came out to calm the protestors down. However, he was allegedly chased with baton-wielding protestors and attacked. They reportedly attacked his vehicle too. Some senior officers rescued him and admitted him to a hospital, a Kolkata police official said.

The protestors said that they didn’t have enough masks and PPE kits in spite of being deployed in containment zones. They also complained that they had been working for 57 days at a stretch and that they didn’t get quality food at the canteen.

“We are being sent on duty in high-risk areas. There are several policemen who have been infected with the virus. This cannot go on,” a police officer of the Combat Force told PTI.

A constable of the combat force who was one of the protesters, said, “After a sub-inspector tested positive for Covid-19, the quarters he used to live in with us were not sanitised. A few days later, three more tested positive and no step was taken to sanitise the premises. We don’t know how many of us are already infected.”