BE HEROES TO MEET THE CHALLENGE NOT WORTH THEIR SALT

Joginder Singh,
IPS(Retd.) Former Director CBI

Criminalisation of the Police Force

The accused surrendered to the local police and confessed his crime. The police officer went to meet the property dealer, after instructing his securitymen to stay behind. Incidentally he had used the police vehicle for travelling out of his jurisdiction for his private work. The self confessed killer has given the motive that the killed police officer had given him money for investing in properties. His investment had sunk and he was not in a position to pay back the amount. (The amount is variously put at 40 lakhs to 95 lakhs).

The truth of the amount invested by the deceased police officer and its source, will never be actually known. It is impossible to earn so much money honestly, for an officer who joined as Sub-Inspector, and later on rose to the level of Deputy Superintendent of Police in Delhi Police, even after assuming that he had saved all his salary. If the killer of the policeman is to be believed, the weapon he used to kill him was provided by the policeman himself, for his (killer's) security. It has come out that this weapon was lost in an encounter and has now surfaced in this murder.

The killer says that the policeman had threatened to kill him if he did not return the money. He also added that he wanted to commit suicide to escape paying his debt, but was persuaded by his family not to do so. So according to him, it was either his life or the life of the policeman, who had headed many death squads.

This is not to downplay the role of the highly decorated police officer, who was involved in life and death encounters with many dreaded criminals. But if the previous complaints involving him in property disputes and the present case are put together, an unsavoury picture emerges of a policeman using his office for private gain. The ‘encounter specialist' is not the only one allegedly amassing wealth. Another Delhi Police, ACP rank official some times back, had absconded but was later on arrested by the CBI, for his alleged extortion attempts from a Delhi-based businessman.

In 2004, as many as 7,755 Delhi Police personnel were punished in departmental inquiries, for their involvement in corruption and various other crimes. Among those punished were, one Assistant Commissioner of Police, 63 Inspectors, 1,385 Sub-Inspectors, 724 Assistant Sub-Inspectors, 1,569 Head Constables, 3570 Constables and 54 class four employees.

The punishment included dismissal, forfeiture of service, reduction in rank and pay withholding increment. 2,312 police personnel were punished in the departmental proceedings and penalties were imposed on them during 2001 while 1,972 were punished in 2002. 400 cases were registered against 517 Delhi Police personnel during the period for their involvement in corruption and other crimes, in 2004.

Unfortunately, the delay in the criminal justice is not conducive to quick punishments or acquittals of the innocents, as the following figures show. A whopping 2,276 long-pending cases investigated by CBI are awaiting trial. While 244 have been pending trial for over 20 years, the remaining 2,032 have been gathering dust in different courts for over 10 years. In all, 8,297 CBI cases are awaiting trial after completion of investigation.

Sadly, criminalisation is not confined merely to corruption in the financial sense. There is ample evidence of increasing police deviance, as can be seen from the reports of incidents of brutality, murder, rape, grievous hurt and other cases by the policemen. The infringements are not confined to merely flouting of departmental rules and regulations or in indulging in peccadilloes, but to committing the most heinous, like rapes, dacoities, extortions, money laundering, cold blooded murders and other sordid crimes. It is not merely police personnel of lower ranks who are involved in crimes, but even the officers of higher ranks, as can be seen from Telegi stamp scams, which named top police brass or a recent conviction of an IGP for getting his mistress murdered, who was pressing him to marry her.

A DG level officer of Bihar is under investigation for possessing assets worth over Rs 60 lakh disproportionate to his known sources of income, along with a number of IAS officers and District Magistrates of that State. A former Punjab Director General of Police has been suspended and charge-sheeted by the State Government for alleged buying benami property.

The fact is that criminalisation of police cannot be de-linked from criminalisation of politics. It is the criminalisation of politics, which has produced and promoted a culture of impunity that allows the wrong type of policemen to get away with sins of commission and omission on the basis of their caste and connections.

There is no smoke without fire. The very allegations, leave aside indictment, only reveal the culture of abusing political power for staying or surviving in office. So, the powers that be, become tolerant of the same vices in the police and other branches of administration.

Corruption or criminalisation is not a monopoly of any political party. No political party can say it has not patronised the corrupt and the criminals and given them a certain degree of respectability. They denounce it publicly, but accept the same privately. The induction of charge-sheeted ministers in the Government, headed by one of the cleanest politicians in India , only confirms what has been public knowledge for several decades. Unfortunately, no democracy, even the oldest, is free from tainted politicians.

Even in the present Parliament, as per the affidavits filed at the time of contesting elections, the following number of elected MPs from the States mentioned against them, had cases pending against them. The listed number comes to exactly 100 out of 543 Members of the present Lok Sabha. In other words, it means that almost every fifth member of the Lok Sabha has had, or will have, a brush with the law, with cases pending against them.

An American had this to say about his country, “I have, in my life time of 79 years to date, lived through and with:

Two Presidents who had mistresses unknown to their legitimate wives.

One President, whose mother did not know who was the father of her child.

One President, who shouted from the rooftops about drugs, but was on them himself.

One President who accumulated illegal cash in his White House safe deposit box.

One President who lied under oath to a grand jury.

Two Presidents who had sex in the White House with women other than their wives.

One President who had orgies nearly every day in the White House with White House personnel.

A Vice-President who was found guilty of tax evasion.

A Secretary of Defence who lied to the Congress and was charged with improper conduct and got off only because a President pardoned him!

What else can you expect from a generation of Americans who have lost their way? Our culture sponsors them, generates them and teaches them to be thieves, liars, cheats and crooks.”

Whatever may be the position in USA , citizens of our country have had enough of maladministration and misgovernance. In the earlier years of Independence , we could blame the British rulers, for mess in our country. Now 61 years later this excuse does not hold good. A survey about the police by the country's leading publication had this to say:

77% say the police have become less trustworthy.

84% say the police are open to political interference.

80% say corruption is a problem with the police.

75% would think twice before filing an FIR.

At the same time, it is futile to put all blame on police. In the words of a former Commissioner of Police, London , Sir Robert Mark “The Police is the best reflection of a society. If the society is tolerant, literate, human, the police will act accordingly.” There are big speeches on police reforms, and debates on police commission reports, committees, but at the end of the day, the result is zero. It is so because in its own narrow and not National interests, no party is willing to improve the police and shed its control over it. It is time to act, and government should remember, that well done is better then well said and nothing preaches better than the act.