Military Assisting Police During Crowd Dispersal Duties: Addressing the Gray Area of Sri Lankan Pragmatism

Abstract

Military and Police forces are established in every state with the prime objective of preserving state and internal security respectively. Moreover, in some occasions Military assist Police in order to uphold peace and order of the state. Thus it is evident that though the theoretical aspects and procedures of Military Corporation with Police during crowd dispersal duties succeed to a certain extent, there are many grey areas which are required to be addressed when both corporate together in practical scenarios because the two establishments are diverse in nature. This was evident during the recent Rathupaswala incident, too. The research problem of this study is to reveal the right time to call for military assistance rather than pre-mature calls, the challenges faced by joint task duties of both organizations due to diverse commanding orders, various terms and cultures being used in military compared with Police and most importantly the responsibility and liability for the actions during military assisting Police in crowd dispersal duties. Also the hypothesis of this study is that if the joint task duties are clearly stated rather than separately, both establishments will be able to overcome these practical challenges. The objective of this study is to introduce new means and methods for joint task duties in crowd dispersing when Police is aided by military and also to educate both Police and military personnel in combination rather than to maintain separate procedures forces-wise. Ultimately these reforms are to be introduced to the defence strategies, in order to inculcate professionalism of both Police and military personnel for national development in order to overcome many challenges in the future.