2004 a nightmare for Men in Khaki

PUNE: The "hand of law" was caught onthe wrong foot in 2004, with the state police witnessing the maximum number ofofficials being arrested in various scams.Former police officialsconfirmed that this was for the first time in the history of the state police ahuge number of them had come under the scanner.Majority of thearrests were in the fake stamp paper racket, in which eight police officialswere put behind bars in 2003 and 2004 - the biggest catch being former Pune andMumbai police commissioner Ranjit Singh Sharma, IGP Shridhar Vagal, DCP PradeepSawant and ACP M.C. Mulani. Lower rank police officials from Nasik, Thane andMumbai were also nabbed in the same racket.Policemen were involvedin other scandals as well. State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) commandant D.R.Shejal was arrested in July 2004 by the anticorruption bureau (ACB) forallegedly collecting a bribe of over Rs 32 lakh during SRPF recruitments inSangli.Similarly, inspector SushilKadam and a police constable attached to the Pune rural police were arrested fortheir involvement in the bogus visa scam on August 25, 2004.However,the biggest catch in the history of the state police was on December 21, 2004,when director general of police (housing) Rahul Gopal was arrested by theACB.Gopal was among the four top police officers in thestate.Current and former police officials feel that the police forcehas become a "risky place" to serve in. "Arrests in some cases were unnecessaryand initiating departmental inquiries would have been enough," an officialsaid.However, some police officials feel that the arrests were afallout of a war between two lobbies in the police force and that some officialswere being made scapegoats. Former director-general of police Vasant Saraffirmly believes that the arrests point to the growing lack of integrity amongtop police officials."Low-rank officials have no respect for theirbosses, and the image of the police has taken a beating," he told TNN.