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Published Nov 04, 2024 | 11:39 AM ⚊ Updated Nov 04, 2024 | 11:39 AM
(Left) Medal filled with typos (Right) Medal without typo
1st November (Friday) was a day steeped in pride and significance for Keralites, as Kerala celebrated State Formation Day and Classical Language Day. State police observe it as Kerala Police Formation Day.
This year, however, the day marked an unexpected blunder that turned the spotlight on the Kerala Police Department—but for all the wrong reasons.
At the heart of this fiasco were the Chief Minister’s Police Medals, an honour traditionally reserved for exemplary service within the force.
Typo filled police medal
Yet, as recipients received their medals at a grand ceremony at SAP Ground in Thiruvananthapuram’s Peroorkada, there was one tiny (or perhaps a monumental) problem: Malayalam text in medals was riddled with embarrassing typos.
The event was supposed to be a moment of pride and decorum for the cops, with 264 officers being celebrated for their commitment to service.
Instead, it quickly descended into farce as officials discovered that the medals bore cringe-worthy spelling blunders on words as basic as Mukhyamantri (Chief Minister), Police, and Medal and that too in Malayalam.
Soon, it caught the attention of social media and Keralites had a fresh fodder for a flood of memes. Instead of being identified with symbols of honours, the misspelled medals became a symbol of oversight and carelessness.
In a hasty response, State Police Chief Sheikh Darvesh Sahib ordered the faulty medals to be recalled immediately, while an inquiry was launched to probe the blunder.
Medal without typo
DIG (Headquarters) Satheesh Bino IPS was assigned to lead the investigation, tasked with determining how a mistake of this magnitude could have slipped past multiple layers of quality checks.
The story gets murkier when one looks at the timeline of events.
Sources reveal that the medals, produced by a private agency, were delivered on 29 October—just three days before the ceremony.
An order had been placed with the said agency on 23 October. Even though they had ample time to avoid errors of this magnitude, the medals arrived with spelling mistakes that would make even the most lenient spell-checker cringe.
The humour surrounding the incident was not lost on Kerala’s police officers themselves. One quipped, “Next time, maybe we should consider awarding medals to the spell-check team too.”
It remains to be seen how this blunder will be resolved even as the private agency is expected to face consequences. A mild slap on the wrist or a full-blown reprimand? Only time will tell.
For now, the Kerala Police Department has yet another challenge to address – alongside crime, traffic management, and public relations woes, “typographical errors” might just be the latest addition to their list of concerns.
