No counsellors in place to help Ggn's 4,000-strong police force

Gurugram: The level of challenges faced by personnel of Gururgram Police can be gauged from the fact that a special police officer (SPO) has to put in a minimum of ten hours of duty, mostly on the ground.

An SPO's starting salary is usually Rs 14,000, and the prospects of exponential increment are bleak.

If the tasking conditions Gurugram's police personnel have to work under is not reason enough to worry, nearly a dozen assaults on police officials by commuters stopped for traffic violations have been reported in the last month.

Saturday's incident of a police security guard shooting down the family members of an additional sessions judge he had been assigned to has also raised the issue of the mental health of the 4,000 personnel-strong Gurugram Police.

The difficulties in resolving the mental issues of police personnel are compounded by the absence of mental health counsellors.

Such is the poor state of affairs in Gurugram that no mental wellness sessions have been organised for police officials.

On January 2, Naresh Kumar, a retired Indian Army personnel who was serving in the Haryana government, had bludgeoned six strangers to death in Palwal, in the fit of rage and depression. He was arrested not before he suffered a brain hemorrhage.

Even after this gruesome incident, Gurugram Police continues to have a lackadaisical approach of ignoring the mental health of its officials.

In Gururgam itself, several incidents where police officials under depression have shot themselves inside police stations have been reported.

"Being depressed is an alien concept to police officials. They still feel they can deal with it themselves. Even though there have been certain sessions of mental health conducted in the past for police officials, more often than not, the response remains muted," said a senior police official.

To tackle this situation to some extent in the district, Commissioner KK Rao hold a session every Monday with his team so that their professional challenges can be discussed.

Moreove, Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar has decided to review the mental health of police officials, and create facilities will to facilitate their treatment.