Police behavior in different situations

It is extremely sickening to see the behavior of our police force when it comes to taking cognizance / not taking cognizance of complaints based on who the complainant is. It is a fact that an ordinary citizen is made to wait inordinately for a complaint to be registered in genuine cases of theft, assault, battery, rape et al whereas if the accused or suspect is someone with either money power or well connected, then you need to see it to believe it, the way in which the cops will find excuses to not book the culprits.

Two recent cases come straight away to mind, the first one relates to the a young 7 year old girl dying of suffocation in Nitin Gadkari, a BJP MP’s motor vehicle in his residential compound in Nagpur. She apparently got locked inside the car and could not get herself out by opening the door (a bit difficult to believe in this day and age!). The incident took place when Yogita Ashok Thakre, daughter of a domestic help entered Gadkari's car while playing outside his house. Police registered a case of accidental death following a complaint lodged by the girl's father. The girl's parents had reportedly claimed that the girl had been raped before being killed. The mystery was over as the post-mortem report revealed no foul play. The cops refused to register a case of rape and murder in spite of evidence to the contrary. "There were fresh external injury marks on her body," the police officer armed with the post-mortem report said while ruling out the rape and murder theory. "Any accidental death, we investigate with a murder angle," he told newspersons at Gadkari's residence.

A Bombay High Court bench on Tuesday wondered why a case of murder was not registered earlier in the mysterious death of a seven-year-old girl in State BJP chief Nitin Gadkari's car on May 19. The observation was made by the vacation Judge Justice C L Pangarkar at Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court when public prosecutor informed him that two offences under section IPC 302(murder) and 201 had been registered yesterday in the case. Here, the Court had to intervene for the cops to register a case – why? just because the incident occurred in a powerful MP’s premises? It is amazing how our cops have still not got over the “mai-baap” sarkaar syndrome or is it that money exchanges hands at all levels to keep things under wraps?

The other case is the one involving MP Padamsinh Patil in the contract murder of Congress leader Pawanraje Nimbalkar, his cousin, in 2006. Mr. R.R. Patil the ex-State Home Minister, had given a clean chit to Mr. Padamsinh Patil in a case of murder while at the same time running a crusade against poor bar dancers on the grounds that the moral fiber of the youth was getting polluted. What can be more polluting than being a protector of murderers when one has the power to use or abuse. As the saying goes power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely! The motive for the revenge was apparently revenge for exposing corruption and malpractices in one of Padamsinh’s sugar cooperatives.

Now that the truth is finally coming out all the patrons are now saying that “the law will take it’s course” – they do not realize that if they had stood for law and done the right thing at the right time, the law would have already taken its course and justice would have been seen to be done the way it is supposed to be done. This just shows that politics does not throw up any permanent friends just permanent interests – the chief amongst them being self interest. So when the political wind blows in the right direction you could be a friend, else an unknown figure!

All this exposes the role of the cops in no uncertain terms – they all kowtow to their political masters, there is no one who has the guts to stand up to the political bosses and say that they will do the right thing. Mayawati in UP has shown how vindictive a politician can be by mass transferring bureaucrats and cops in all constituencies where she lost in the recent parliamentary elections! The need of the hour is to de-link the services – civil (IAS), police(IPS) and foreign (IFS) from political control – the appointments should come with a fixed tenure having responsibility and authority clearly defined so that these people can work without fear or favor. In fact the law should be made such that any of these bureaucrats caught in corruption should be severely punished and seen to be punished so that at least in the near future people will think twice before indulging in mal-practices.