First heart, then baton: PM urges UP police recruits to observe "sensitivity" while carrying out duties

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday urged new recruits to Uttar Pradesh's police department to observe "sensitivity" while carrying out their duties and put the heart before the baton.

Modi was virtually addressing a programme held to provide recruitment letters to 9,055 sub-inspectors of police, PAC platoon commanders and fire division officers selected by the UP Police Recruitment and Promotion Board.

"The government provides you with a baton but do not forget that the government comes later. First, you have been provided with a heart by the almighty, so you will have to think from the heart more than you think from the baton. You will have to both be more sensitive, as well as make the system more sensitive," Modi said in his address, adding that in their police training too, it would be kept in mind that they exhibit sensitivity while discharging their duties.


Modi's statement was pertinent considering the UP police had often come under scrutiny over instances of apathy by officers. UP tops the chart for custodial deaths, with 501 custodial deaths reported in 2021 and 451 in 2020. Most recently, the police were seen to facilitate a misplaced bulldozer action during an anti-encroachment raid in Kanpur Dehat, which caused a mother-daughter duo to lose their lives.

Modi said the UP police department had recruited more than 1,50,000 personnel since the BJP came to power in 2017, which meant both employment and security had improved under the BJP in the state.