This seems to be very common in Indian English journalism.

Googling “the police have” and “the police has” with “site:indiatimes.com” yields claims of 1,430,000 hits for the plural and 525,000 hits for the singular—and on a quick “eyeball” survey the singular hits appear to be only about 5% or 10% false positives like “trust in the police has been shaken”. “site:hindustantimes.com” yields 246,000 for the plural and 32,000 for the singular, and “site:tribuneindia.com” yields a 7:1 preponderance of singular uses: 176,000 hits against23,000 hits on the plural.

Singular the police seems to be very common in Indian English journalism.

Googling “the police have” and “the police has” with “site:indiatimes.com” yields claims of 1,430,000 hits for the plural and 525,000 hits for the singular—and on a quick “eyeball” survey the singular hits appear to be only about 5% or 10% false positives like “trust in the police has been shaken”. “site:hindustantimes.com” yields 246,000 for the plural and 32,000 for the singular, and “site:tribuneindia.com” yields a 7:1 preponderance of singular uses: 176,000 hits against23,000 hits on the plural.