Bihar police on Thursday got 1,605 sub-inspectors, including 596 women sub-inspectors, after they passed out of the police training academy at Rajgir in the presence of chief minister Nitish Kumar. This is the largest ever induction of officers in the state.

Congratulating the new officers and pointing out the high number of women sub-inspectors to pass out in this batch, Nitish asserted that it was not an ordinary achievement.

“Having 596 women police officers passing out among the sub-inspectors today is not an ordinary thing. We started with reserving 50 per cent seats in panchayati raj institutions for women and worked further for their education, welfare and development. It has started paying now,” Nitish said at the passing out parade.

The chief minister also said that Bihar has paid special attention to recruiting women in the police force, and no other state in the country has them in such large numbers.

Asked about the number of women in Bihar police, DIG personnel Ranjeet Kumar Mishra told The Telegraph that it would not be possible to give their numbers offhand.

“However, there are 18 to 20 per cent women in the 80,000 strong police force. The numbers have increased sharply over the last few years due to the state government police recruiting more women to the force and also reserve 35 per cent seats for them,” he said.

Remembering the condition of law and order, and the police at the time when he came to power in 2005, Nitish said that the police stations had no vehicles and adequate weapons.

“We provided two vehicles to each of the police stations and worked to improve the availability of weapons. We also started recruitment of policemen in the light of the high population of the state,” Nitish said.

Bihar has at present over 80,000 policemen, while the state government is working on a plan to recruit 20,000 more. The target is to take their numbers to 1.40 lakh over the next couple of years.

“Bihar’s population is high so the police force should also be more in numbers to ensure a better environment and the rule of law. We cannot say that crime will not happen, but swift action should be taken to deal with it,” Nitish said.

He also wished that an atmosphere of peace, love and harmony prevailed in the state. He also asked the new officers to work for the successful implementation of prohibition. He dwelt for long on the necessity to enforce the ban on liquor properly.

This is what senior serving and retired police officers in the state feared. They are of the opinion that the entire police force’s focus is on prohibition leading to the neglect of attention on controlling other types of more serious offences like murder, rape, robbery and kidnapping.

A former director general of police (DGP), who retired during the Nitish regime, told this newspaper on the condition of anonymity, “The entire police force seems to have become directionless and the policing has gone awry. It is indulged in either conducting raids to seize liquor or to compromise prohibition. As a result we see that heinous crimes have risen sharply in the state. Murders are happening as frequently as people use expletives here.”

“The chief minister’s emphasis on prohibition in his address at the passing out parade was uncalled for as it would leave an unwanted impression on the brains of these new officers that their foremost duty is to implement prohibition. Agreed that liquor is banned in the state, but there are more serious crimes that need to be curbed,” the former DGP said.

The crime data maintained by the Bihar police reveals that the state witnessed 1,399 murders, 749 rapes, 1,369 incidents of robbery and dacoity, 1,078 road robbery, 5,089 kidnappings and 3,413 riots, 17,962 thefts, and 1,918 burglaries out of total 1.32 lakh cognizable offences (registered at the police stations) in the six months between January and June this year.

The crime figures surprise all the more because the state also had lockdowns of various intensities between April and June this year. It is also a well-known fact that many crimes go unreported as people avoid approaching the police.