Hyderabad: While Telangana chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) recently announced filling up of thousands of jobs in the government recently, the state government had already appointed a few thousand constables and sub inspectors across the state.
However, many of them who are appointed in Hyderabad are facing a peculiar issue due to their inability to understand or communicate in Urdu, the second official language of Telangana. Without knowing the local language, which is still fairly used across the core areas of Hyderabad, citizens are not able to fully communicate with the cops, often leading to confusion .
The latest example is a video of AIMIM Pathergatti corporator Sohail Quadri having a conversation with Moghalpura sub-inspector Mukesh Vardhan. The sub-inspector was trying to convey his point in English while the corporator was explaining the problem in Urdu. Problem arose with regard to the parking of vehicles at the Charminar Unani Hospital belonging to the Muslims going to pray at the Mecca Masjid.
Nevertheless, the issue ended on happy note without any legal issues.
However, many residents of Hyderabad’s Old City point out that the newly posted sub-inspectors and constables in the south zone and parts of west zone do not understand Urdu, nor are able to speak or write or read it (or even Hindi).
“Urdu is the second official language of the State, yet there are no efforts by the police department to give basic training of Urdu dialect to the new recruits. Due to this, many sub inspectors are unable to understand the complainants. They depend on some constables who turn as translators for them,” said Amjedullah Khan from the MBT.
Due to such communication problems, the ‘people friendly police’ concept also suffers a setback, as people feel the policemen don’t respect the enough.
For instance, the use of the word ‘Aap’ is used when someone is addressed politely, but those unfamiliar replace it with ‘tu’ which is seen as disrespectful. “Earlier, policemen used impolite words while dealing with criminals but using similar words due to lack of knowledge of basic intricacies is improper,” points out Farhath Khan, an advocate from the Old City . He added that the intention of police officials might be good, but that it is of no use if words harm relationships between cops and citizens.
The Indian Police Services rules also mandates that officials posted in any state learn the local languages. However, there is no such rule for police officers from Telangana. “The ‘local language must’ rule was devised to help officials build a good rapport with the local population and get closer to them,” said a senior police official from the department, who did not want to be named.
A clinical psychologist also told Siasat.com said when anyone is able to speak the same language as the locals, they enhance communication and prevent misunderstandings.
“Sharing a common language can reduce communication roadblocks and foster better understanding. Language barriers regularly prevent the law enforcement system from functioning as well as it could,” she said.
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