Personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF) and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) would now be assisting the Kerala police as interpreters to communicate and better understand the requirements of the migrant labourers in the State.
In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, the State government is fully taking care of the requirement of the migrant labourers. There are 4 lakh of them who have now been accommodated in 12,992 labour camps across the State. However, the police and others were finding it hard to communicate and understand the issues faced by them.
Hence, the Kerala police had requested the CRPF, the BSF and the ITBP, the service of personnel to fluently communicate with the migrant labourers from Assam, Orissa and Bengal.
Following the request, the Recruits Training Centre, CRPF, Peringome, and CRPF, Group Centre, Pallipuram, Thiruvananthapuram, have deployed 51 personnel’s across the State.
M.J. Vijay, Deputy Inspector General of RTC, CRPF, Peringome, said 40 personnel alone from Peringome camp were performing duties as interpreters along with the Kerala police in the district, including Kasaragod, Kannur, Kozhikode, Malapuram, which were in red zones, Wayanad and Palakkad, which was in orange zone.
“They can help bridge the gap between the State government and migrant labour, besides helping to them to understand the requirement and problems faced by them,” he observed.
Most numbers of personnel had been deployed from the RTC camp to support the Kerala police, he added.
BSF DIG Baby Joseph said they received the request from the Kerala police and immediately they prepared a list of people who were now placed in the camps. “We have found that there are about 45 personnel, who can speak the language and so far they have deployed 10 people in various parts of the State,” he said.
They would assist the police by visiting the camps and speaking to the migrant labour on the issues faced by them and their requirements, he said. Depending on the need all the personnel would be deployed, he added. Mr. Joseph said that they would be assisting until the lockdown and further if requested.
Sudesh Kumar, Additional Director General of Police, is the nodal officer in this regard.
