Don’t harass complainants at police stations: HC

Patna: The Patna high court on Monday cautioned the state's police department that no person, approaching a police station for lodging a complaint/FIR about any crime, be mistreated or harassed.
A division bench, comprising chief justice K Vinod Chandran and justice Partha Sarthy, issued the directive to Director General of Police (DGP) of Bihar, while disposing of a PIL filed by Bihar Federation of Women Lawyers (BFWL).
This PIL was filed against the alleged incident of a chain snatching from a woman advocate in the broad daylight of September 13, this year, near Bihar Museum at Bailey road. The victim had to run from one police station to another for merely lodging her complaint, which was procrastinated on the pretext of verifying CCTV footage of the alleged crime. On September 14, the court had taken cognizance of this PIL and sought an action taken report (ATR) from Patna Police.
On Monday, the court was informed about the progress of the investigation of the matter. It was submitted that all culprits as identified by the victim advocate have been nabbed. However, the alleged incident was not of a chain snatching rather of duping, whereby the gold ornament of the victim advocate was deceptively exchanged by the imitated one.
While closing the matter, the two judges orally observed, “If an advocate is maltreated in lodging an FIR of a crime perpetrated against her, then what will happen to a common citizen? We are cautioning the DGP that such harassment of any citizen should not be repeated in future.”