Police reforms my mission now: Kiran Bedi

New Delhi, Dec 28: Kiran Bedi, India's first woman IPS officer and former DGP who took voluntary retirement from police service, said her mission now is to bring about police reforms.

Speaking at the release of a book 'Yoga For Women' by Megna Virk Bains here yesterday, Dr Bedi said she would implement her mission soon. Terming the government's projections to bring about police reforms as ''just an eyewash'', Dr Bedi said the force was providing protection only for VIPs or other powerful people who received terrorist threats. It had no time for the ordinary man.

All the energy of the police force is being drained in appointing police personnel for VIP security but none for the poor man. ''We want a society which is not afraid of the protection force. The police should be a friend of the comman man and always be ready to help them,'' she said.

Alleging that policemen today were being terrorised by the government to settle scores, she said it was necessary that reforms were implemented to give a boost to their image as one of respect and not merely as a tool of the government.

Dr Bedi said her stint as Director General (DG) of the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) enabled her mission to carry out reforms, which could otherwise not have been possible by working in the government, thus her decision to quit.

'' At the BPR&D, I could clearly see the Government's intentions for police reforms; there was no programme, no vision and no will to have the reforms, it was only an eyewash, so I thought to have them implemented from the outside, '' she said.

''We do not want any more new laws, but only the implementation of the old laws,'' she said. The policies are being made day after day but what is needed is their implementation. The laws which are vital for the people as well as for the police are already there but we have to see the enforcement of these laws now, she said.

When asked how she planned to achieve her mission, she said, '' today is just the first day after my VRS (Voluntary Retirement Scheme) has been accepted... wait and watch.'' Dr Bedi tendered her resignation from the post of DG of the BPR&D on November 19, months ahead of her superannuation, and opted for premature voluntary retirement. She was sore with the government after she was denied the post of the Police Commissioner of Delhi.

Talking about her decision to quit the post of DG, she said she could visualise that it was hard to work under the government, which she said now had no governance. '' It was then I decided to quit.

I left the best bungalow, my best car, my best driver only because I was angry...angry at the government's policy and someone has to tell the Government how to function,'' she said.

UNI