Aiming to nurture a humane approach among police personnel and to increase their productivity, the Tamil Nadu Special Police (TSP) has established dedicated silent spaces called ‘Zen zones’ and ‘Zen dens’ for personnel in all 16 battalions spread across several parts of the State. Here, police personnel will be allowed to spend time meditating to get over stressful circumstances.
Earlier, yoga had been taught once a week by instructors. Now, they have earmarked a place on the campus and converted it into a silent space exclusively for the purpose of meditation. Imparting training on meditation and yoga to police officers would help them understand how they could nurture and maintain their inner spirit of compassion, connectedness and render quality work, police officers said.
Additional Director General of Police, K. Jayanth Murali, who was instrumental in starting this initiative, said, “Meditation is very important and useful for our police personnel. One of the important matters police deal with is the public. If personnel are agitated and aggressive, their relationship with the public will not be harmonious. That is the reason conflict between the police and the public has been reported often. We live in a very stressful society. When a person meditates, his productivity improves. When a person is with a calm mind, he will always produce more and better than any other human being. The productivity of organisation will also improve.”
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TSP force roped in people who specialised in meditation and yoga apart from its own instructors for this purpose. Officers said the programme was not religious and there were no idols inside the dens. Each battalion is earmarked a hall which can accommodate at least 25 persons at a time. All standard operating procedures of COVID-19 are being followed here.
G.Umaiyal, commandant, IV Battalion, Kovaipudur said, “If police personnel feel a lot of stress, they can go to the hall and sit quietly, and meditate. One SI has been posted exclusively for this. Before entering, we try and speak to them to understand their issues.”
Personnel from TSP are mostly freshers. They are assigned duties such as general bandobust, VIP protection, escorting, law and order maintenance, traffic regulation, prison security. P.Ponnumani, from 11th Battalion, Rajapalayam, said, “Meditation and breathing exercise which are taught here help us to maintain physical and mental health, control anger while discharging the duties.”
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“These practices will provide us relief from stress and focus more on assigned duties,” said S. Sugavanan, Sub-Inspector from Pochamballi battalion, Krishnagiri district.