By Rabi Raj Thapa

Any government law enforcement agency is respected just for its integrity, diligence, sincerity its “Responsibility to Protect”, the life and property of common people. More often good police behavior wonders than guns to ensure security, law and order in a given situation. However, guns and weapons are also needed in law enforcement.

It is good news that the government of Nepal allocated a pretty good amount of budget to buy guns and necessary items for Nepal Police, now the time has come for the government to ensure these are well preserved and used to make police agencies less servient and more independent in its functions and application to serve its Responsibility to Protect the civilians.  

How does a common man compare gunned uniformed police to an unarmed traffic police? There are good police like “Bobbies” of Great Britain who are known to carry no firearms. On the contrary, there are American Police with dazzling uniforms and who always carry personnel weapons. One study showed that in the United States, 120 per 100 population carry handguns compared to less than 5 percent in the United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland). The logic behind carrying a handgun may vary depending on the number of police personnel killed while performing duty. In this regard, the use of firearms, and armed encounters are too little and too negligible in Nepal.   

After the promulgation of the federal constitution of Nepal, restructuring of Nepal has become a more acute urgent, critical and controversial problem and challenge today. The change of uniform from Khakhi to blue has not fundamentally changed the Nepal Police mentality of the colonial subservient nature of pleasing their masters. It has also become obvious that an organization’s destiny cannot change without a good leader at its helm. And Nepal Police has always caught up whenever there is some big money to buy guns during the time of purchasing guns during the CPM (M) Maoist insurgency or the Sudan Scam of 2017. Let us hope that this budget to buy arms for the Nepal Police does not invite any controversy and scams.

More than arms purchases, restructuring of police into three functional tiers has become more urgent but complicated today. Since the establishment of the Armed Police Force in Nepal, there has been a chronic problem of duplication, jurisdiction, command and control and deployment added with the Ministry’s own dysfunctional oversight mechanism. Therefore, there needs to be a policy to equip each organization with adequate types of weapons in adequate numbers for each organization as per their need.

Another point to ponder is the success and popularity of the Metropolitan Police of Kathmandu and Lalitpur. What are the basic fundamental attributes of such unarmed, small forces who have earned praise and credit for their small project done professionally? In my view, there are three major attributes of any effective police law enforcement, i.e. 1. Professional knowledge, 2. Skills related to law enforcement along with police etiquette, attitude and behavior. To enhance all these, Nepal Police launched many community-focused programs like the “Community –Police Partnership Program”.

Now when Nepal police have money to buy guns, they also need to learn how to use these guns to protect them not to kill them arbitrarily. There will always be a small number of trigger-happy soldiers and trigger-happy police in each organization. A recent incident at Tinkune on March 28 this year has given a bad example of guns without good control and planning; where lack of good and adequate professional training on handling weapons, and lack of fire control can do more harm than good and tarnish hard-earned organization’s trust and confidence in no time.

Therefore, let’s hope this new purchase will strengthen the organization’s image enhance the role and “Responsibility to Protect” more effectively and win the trust and confidence of the people in future.