MP police aspirants get caste marked on chests
A row has erupted over marking of chests of police constable aspirants to identify their castes during their medical tests in MP’s Dhar district.
Photographs showing the candidates stamped with “SC”, “ST” and “OBC” on their chests during their medical tests in Dhar have gone viral in social media, leaving the Madhya Pradesh government red faced.
“No instructions have been given to mark the candidates to identify their castes. This is grave matter. We have begun a probe into it. Guilty will be punished,” Dhar district superintendent of police Birendra Kumar Singh said on Sunday.
MP director general of police ( DGP) Rishi Kumar Shukla also took serious exception to it, saying, “This should not have happened. But, there was no ill- motive behind the move”.
“This was done to ensure transparency in the physical measurements of the candidates as per the norms laid down for the particular categories of the candidates”, a senior police officer in the state police headquarters told this newspaper.
According to the police officer, as many as 300 candidates, who had cleared the written tests conducted by the Professional Examination Board of MP for the post of police constables held in December last year, were called for medical and physical measurement tests in district headquarters town of Dhar on April 25.
As per the conventional practice, candidates of these categories have been marked castes they belonged to on their bodies during physical measurement tests to give them the benefits of the relaxations as per the laid down norms.
While general and OBC categories of candidates are required to have the height of 168 cm to be eligible for the post, there is relaxation of height measurement for the SC and ST categories of the candidates by three centimetres.
The civil surgeon who was in- charge of conducting the medical tests of the recruits clarified that the health department staff had not done the markings on the candidates. The MP government had advertised for filling of 14,088 posts of police constables in September last year.