NEW DELHI—In a move that is bound to hurt the sentiments of aficionados of Urdu, the Uttarakhand Police has recently edited and published a 700-page police training manual, substituting approximately 1,100 Urdu words that have been in use for nearly 150 years with their Hindi equivalents for various cases falling under the Indian Penal Code, CrPC, and the Indian Evidence Act. The Uttarakhand police training manual will now use “Pure Hindi” terminologies while reporting cases and during the process of pleading in the courts.
For more than two and a half months, a team of 20 police officers diligently conducted research to identify Urdu terms that had been in use for more than a century and a half. They were able to replace nearly 1,100 Urdu terms with their Hindi counterparts in the updated training manual. Some of the Urdu words had been in practice since 1860 in the Indian Penal Code and since 1872 in the Indian Evidence Act. These Urdu terms were familiar to the older generation of police officers. However, the younger generation had limited knowledge of Urdu and encountered difficulties in understanding and usage. It is true that for many years, Urdu has taken a backseat in school and college curricula and hence acquaintance with Urdu words from the classical era is slowly disappearing.
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