Delhi police chief objects to Arvind Kejriwal’s use of thulla for his force

Delhi police commissioner BS Bassi on Friday objected to the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s use of ‘thulla’ for his policemen.

Kejriwal, while speaking to a news channel, said that A case can be lodged against anyone by the Anti-Corruption Branch for being involved in corruption. But these people say that if a thulla is harassing a roadside vendor, then you can lodge a case against them. This is not acceptable”

Thulla is a derogatory term often used to address the members of Delhi police.

Bassi said that he found it unbelievable that anyone let alone the Delhi CM could use such word for his police force.

He said, “All institutions must have mutual respect for each other and the nation building can be done only if we have mutual respect for each other. So I refuse to believe that the honourable CM has said any word of this sort.”

Another senior police officer on Monday added bitterness to Kejriwal’s ties with Delhi police with a tweet that reminded the CM of the good things cops in Delhi had done recently.

One of our so called ‘Thu**a’ who rescued 4 yr old Khushbu from Kamla Nagar & reunited with her mother!! pic.twitter.com/mad7fBnjJ2

— Madhur Verma (@DCP_North_Delhi) July 19, 2015

Delhi government has been at loggerheads with the centre over the jurisdiction of the ACB, which had arrested a head constable of a Delhi police earlier this year on corruption charges.

Delhi police reports to the centre and, therefore, the Delhi government has no control over it even though the ruling Aaam Aaadmi Party had won a historic victory in this year’s assembly elections.

More recently, the Delhi CM suggested the idea of holding referendum to decide if people wanted were in favour Delhi acquiring full statehood.

Among other things Kejriwal also talked about his party’s intention to contest Punjab assembly elections before repeating his demands for Delhi to get full state’s status.

On the subject of Delhi statehood, Kejriwal said that AAP is keen to hold a referendum in the capital to know that the public thinks. He said there was nothing wrong in listening to the opinion of the people of Delhi in this regard. Kejriwal also accused the Centre of not letting the Delhi government function properly.

The Delhi Chief Minister also hailed the work done by his state government ever since it came into power and expressed confidence that if the elections were to be held again today, 70 out of 70 seats would be won by AAP.