Police Commissioner Isikia Savua said the 1997 reshuffle of senior police officers in the Western Division was necessary to prevent officers from becoming ‘too familiar’ with the communities they served.
According to an article published by this newspaper on June 14 that year, Mr Savua said the move was in line with a proposed policy requiring officers to spend a minimum of two years in a posting before being transferred.
He said there had been instances, not only in the Western Division, where officers had become too familiar with local communities, which at times interfered with their duties.
Mr Savua was referring to the transfer of Western Divisional Police Commander Senior Superintendent Govind Raju to police headquarters, where he would serve as director of uniform operations.
Senior Superintendent Senitiki Raikoti, the current director of uniform operations, would replace him in the Western Division.
Ba Police Station officer-in-charge Assistant Superintendent Jitendra Kumar was also transferred to Suva.
Suva-based prosecutor Inspector Vinod Prasad was expected to replace ASP Kumar.
“Getting familiar with the people is both good and bad if it is not handled well,” Mr Savua said.
“It’s not only in the West that we have officers becoming too familiar with the people, and sometimes that interferes with or affects their work.”
He added that SSP Raikoti had recently returned from Croatia and said officers who spend too much time at police headquarters can become overly focused on administrative work.
“Sometimes when people stay too long at headquarters, they get bogged down with administration work and forget about the needs and requirements of people in the field,” he said.
