The Kerala Police Officers’ Association (KPOA) has called for gender-neutral recruitment across ranks in the police force focused solely on skills and qualifications to ensure equal opportunities and a diverse workforce. The association also proposed the complete electronicization of documentation at police stations.
The KPOA emphasized the need to abandon the current practice of setting minimum targets for women’s representation and instead prioritize merit-based appointments. According to her, such an approach would allow a higher proportion of women to organically join the force in the long term. It also sought to expand the current policy of recruiting women in significant numbers at the sub-inspector level to the rank of civil police officer.
The proposals received strong support at the state-level KPOA seminar held here. S. Ajeetha Begum, Inspector General of Police, Economic Offences, Crimes and Directorate of Social Policing, emphasized the importance of expanding the role of women in the police force. A higher representation of women, she noted, would suit the demographic profile of Kerala, where women outnumber men, and could make the force more empathetic and compassionate.
KPOA state general secretary CR Biju, while presenting various demands on the programme, also called for an overhaul of the “archaic” writing style used in case diaries, first information reports (FIRs), charge sheets, remand reports and other legal documents. He emphasized the need to abandon complicated and long sentences and adopt a modern style characterized by clarity, brevity and concise sentence structure, in accordance with the changing times.
Published – 02 Jan 2026 20:43 IST
