Police officers should learn languages

There is only one Police Service in Sri Lanka, which was known as the Ceylon Police Service and subsequently became the Sri Lanka Police Service.

All those who joined the Service were officers of the Police Service irrespective of their ethnic identity. In the good old days there were Burghers, Malays, Muslims, Tamils and Sinhalese who were recruited and served the Department admirably well. Officers of all ranks have served in every part of the country, irrespective of their ethnic identity.

Currently, there had been requests to post Tamil Police Officers to the North and East, and reference to Sinhalese and Tamil Police Officers. It was the Tamil political parties in the North which mooted the idea of posting Tamil Police Officers to the North and East prior to the war. Police officers should not be identified according to their ethnicity. Every Police officer is a peace officer as appointed according to the Police Ordinance and Criminal Procedure Code, and they are expected to serve in every part of the country. The concept of having Police officers with a particular ethnic background should not be encouraged, but encouragement should be given to every Police officer to learn all three languages, if not, Sinhala and Tamil.

I am aware in the recent past a positive step has been taken to recruit youngsters from the North and East, both males and females. They were trained at the Sri Lanka Police Training College, Katukurunda and had been posted to Police Stations in the North and East. I am aware that a further batch of applicants from the North and East are being recruited to undergo training very soon.

The emphasis should not be on posting Tamil officers, but Police officers well conversant in Tamil and Sinhalese, so that even the recently recruited Police officers from the North and East could be posted to Police Stations in any part of the country, so that they can serve as Police officers and not of a particular ethnicity.

The government has taken steps and continues to take steps to recruit youths from the North and East. However, the government should take positive steps to teach all three languages, if not, the two major languages, to all Police officers as all are Police officers under the Police Ordinance and not of a particular ethnic origin.

- B Anton Jeyanathan
Dy Inspector General of Police, Sri Lanka Police, (Rtd.)