At a rented house in Gomti Nagar in Lucknow, 22 police officers spend their days almost doing  nothing. It's an entire special police force - they include an Additional Director General, two IGs, three DIGs and four SPs.

The special force, Shanti Suraksha Bal (SSB), was created in 1991 by Mulayam Singh Yadav when he was the Uttar Pradesh chief minister. The aim was to form a force parallel to the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC), which has been charged with pro-Hindu leanings and aggressively partisan behaviour in communal riots.

But the force did not take off as Mulayam's successors were not keen on it. After seven years of existence in no-man's land, the Shanti Syraksha Bal is likely to be disbanded ... Mulayam's idea was to create a secular police force to tackle communal riots. Senior officials were placed in the wing soon after it was created and orders issued to recruit constables with the condition that each community, especially the Muslims, should get adequate representation.

The cost of the paraphernalia for the new force was estimated at around Rs. 50 crore. The original plan was to create 10 battalions of the Suraksha Bal, each with a force of 1,600 constables and headed by one SP, four ASPs and 18 DSPs ... The recruitment process was halted when the Allahabad High Court stayed the process following a petition by a VHP leader, Mulayam's government collapsed and the government that followed did not appeal against the verdict ... Mulayam and Kalyan Singh put it on the back burner. The equipment and vehicles purchased for the Suraksha Bal were diverted to other departments.