Getting in step with the government's 'healing touch' policy, the new Jammu and Kashmir police chief has decided to educate his force about human rights and their role in a democratic polity.

The exercise is seen as an effort by Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to impart a humane face to the police force.

Director General of Police Gopal Sharma has invited former Border Security Force chief D K Arya, at present a consultant to the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), to deliver lectures on human rights to his force, a police spokesman in Srinagar said.

The programme is scheduled from June 23 till June 28, 2003.

"It would include provisions of the Geneva Convention, use of force and fire arms, torture, custodial deaths, involuntary disappearances, police support to vulnerable groups like women, children, weaker sections of society, arrest, bail and detention, victims of crime and abuse of power and above all democratic, legal and ethical policing," the spokesman said.

The initiative taken by the DGP to "bring around an attitudinal change in the force, comes in the wake of the government directive to make the state police a people friendly force and prevent human rights abuses," he said.

After assuming charge in May, Gopal Sharma had said, "The police has to evolve itself with the needs and aspirations of society and it has to do a balancing act between police as service and police as force."