For marking attendance by proxy, cops are suspended

Three police constables attached to the Local Arms (LA) unit of Mumbai police have been suspended after an inquiry reveled that one of the constable had not reported to duty in the month of April while the other two constables marked his attendance for alleged monetary gains.

The incident came to light when the police department received a tip-off about a constable Pravin Deshmukh who was not reporting to duty, and instead was paying Rs 500 per day to police clerks to mark him present.

During the inquiry, it was revealed that in the month of April, Deshmukh did not reported to duty and was actually at his native place in Sinnar, Nashik. However, in his duty chart maintained by police clerk Pankaj Mali and Ashish Nerkar he was never marked as absent. Instead Deshmukh was shown that he was perfor ming his duty at different places in the city.

When this duty allocation was verified with the police constables who were deployed at the places along with Deshmukh, they said that Deshmukh did not attend the duty. In May, Deshmukh reported to duty and went on leave stating personal problems, said an official.

"Following the revelation a disciplinary action has been taken against all the three and they were suspended owing a pending enquiry," said an official.

After the outbreak of COVID-19, the city police force is facing a staf f crunch as they have rested police constables above 55 years of age owing to their vulnerability to the virus, while several others were out of actions due to contracting coronavirus or home isolated owing to their proximity to positive policemen.

Few days ago another two constables from LA were dismissed from the police force for not reporting to duty despite several warnings.