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`Bonus` on the sly

`Bonus` on the sly Police in Bombay are paying a high price for mixing business with pleasure; One of the two policemen who tested HIV positive last December was a constable posted in a red-light area, according to the chief police surgeon of Bombay police, S Uppe. Incidentally, the first policeman in the country officially identified to have a full blown case of AIDS was admitted to a Bombay hospital in February.

A senior police official admitted that "policemen posted in redlight areas seek additional 'bonus' on the sly, running a high risk of HIV transmission." A worried police chief of Bombay, Sudhir Sawhney, has ordered screening of all policemen who were posted in red-light areas In the past five years. Uppe, however, says this cannot be done till the men volunteer to be tested.

In the Capital, another AIDS-12 related, dilemma is brewing Supercop Kiran Bedi, who is incharge of Tihar jail, is being badgered by medical agencies to distribute condoms in the jail, where homosexuality is claimed to be rampant. To gauge the extent of the threat, Bedi has dispatched blood samples of inmates for HIV tests. But the result could put her in a fix because homosexuality is a crime and distribution of condoms would amount to its abetment.

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