Economist victim of corrupt cop

RANCHI: A police officer allegedly sought Rs500 from eminent economist Jean Dreze, former member of the National Advisory Council, to release his confiscated motorbike.
The incident prompted Dreze to lodge a complaint of 'attempted bribery, theft and harassment' against police with Ranchi deputy commissioner Manoj Kumar on Monday. The complaint was released to the media on Tuesday.
According to Dreze's complaint (a copy is with TOI), on December 13 Dreze borrowed a motorbike (No JH01R-9315) from the Institute for Human Development for the purpose of attending a meeting in Hehal on the outskirts of Ranchi.
"I parked and locked the motorbike in the parking lot at Ranchi University PG department in Morhabadi, where I had some work. When I came out of the building about an hour later, the motorbike had disappeared. I went to the nearest Gonda police station to file an FIR. The officers on duty refused to register an FIR and asked me to go to Bariatu PS," Dreze said.
He went to Gonda police station again on Monday with a witness. "This time we were told to go to Lalpur police station where the officers on duty were not helpful. They seemed to think that it was part of their job to be rude. Sub-inspector Balbir Singh (who had no uniform or name tag) kept shouting at us and asking irrelevant questions. Eventually, we discovered that the bike was right there," Dreze said.
Lalpur police station officer in-charge B N Singh said the police 'took the bike away to protect the bike from theft'. "The police made no effort at all to inform the PG department the next day, or to find out who was the rightful owner of the bike," Drez claimed.
"After we wanted to register a complaint of theft, a police officer agreed to release the bike. Assistant sub-inspector Suresh Thakur, another officer at the police station, asked us for a bribe of Rs 500 before we left. We refused to pay the bribe," Drez told TOI.
On Tuesday, Dreze went back to Lalpur PS to ask whether the confiscation of this bike had been entered anywhere in the police records. "We were informed by B N Singh and his colleagues, including Suresh Thakur that there was no such record," he said.
The economist said the incident gave him a bitter taste of the behaviour and work ethic of police officers. "Since the Ranchi Police can obviously not be trusted to register complaints, I am sending this complaint to you with a request for disciplinary action against Balbir Singh and Suresh Thakur," Dreze said in the complaint.
When contacted Lalpur OC B N Singh told TOI: "Dreze was given the bike when he came to the police station. The Gonda police informed us on Sunday that a bike was lying in an abandoned condition. A night patrol team brought it to the police station to protect it." He said he does not have any information about a police officer seeking bribe from Dreze.
SI Balbir Singh and ASI Suresh Thakur were suspended by Ranchi SSP Prabhat Kumar, who met Jean Dreze in his office on Tuesday, after DC forwarded the complaint to him.
Jean Dreze was recently in news when he was dropped from the list of speakers at the recent Delhi Economics Conclave inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Jean Dreze teaches at Ranchi University apart from doing research work on rural development, economics and other issues.