Police have found 2,400 of the country’s 3,500 officers in the worst state of police leave in history, a report said on Thursday.
Police in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which has seen more than 3,000 people killed in police encounters since 2015, are the worst in the country when it comes to fatalities and injuries, the Indian Express reported.
Nearly 2,600 policemen have been sacked or suspended since 2016 over the police corruption scandal, which led to the death of a state-based police officer, and hundreds of thousands of rupees ($16,300) worth of missing or unaccounted-for money have been seized.
The Indian Express said police officers have reported being forced to wear masks and wear gloves during their shifts to stop them from becoming “bashful”.
Police chief B.K. Chaudhary said that the police had found “no evidence of foul play” in the case, adding that they had arrested three suspects.
“We are confident that our men will be safe,” Chaudhar said.
Police have also blamed the deaths of two senior officers on a lack of training.
“We have trained our men on the basics of their job.
We have provided them with proper equipment and we have also given them proper equipment for training,” Choudhary told the newspaper.”
However, this incident does not indicate the absence of training on proper use of firearms, as it is clear that the accused are trained on using firearms,” he said.
The government has promised compensation to the families of the dead and the officers who were killed, but it has yet to pay.