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- Cops on the beat
This story is from May 21, 2006
Cops on the beat
They rain lathis on peaceful protesters in Mumbai, beat up striking workers in Gurgaon, preach morals in Shillong. Still want to call the cops? Sunday Times probes why the man in khaki is increasingly seen as a law unto himself.
Cops framed questions to kill Jessica case'; 'Cops go berserk, thrash workers'; 'Police action against docs is brutal, unprovoked'. They're making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Be it a murder case, industrial unrest or peaceful protests, police are increasingly at the receiving end for going over the top in situations they are supposedly trained to handle.
To complicate matters further, they're taking on tasks that training taught them nothing about - moral policing. After Meerut's Operation Majnu, policemen are asking live-in couples to get married in Shillong, preaching morality to hand-holding couples in Chandigarh, driving lovers out of parks in Orissa and falling over each other to probe wardrobe malfunctions on the ramp in Mumbai.
Net result: The image of the law-enforcer is plummeting. Recent instances point to the lack of three essential factors of good policing: impartiality, effectiveness and humaneness.
Indians are not convinced they are helpful. "Those protesting against reservations in Mumbai were students and not anti-social elements. But it's unfortunate that the police can't make a distinction," says retired IPS officer K S Subramaniam.
It all boils down to bad training, he feels. "The colonial mindset hasn't gone after so many years and people are regarded as enemies of the state." Which raises a host of questions: At what point is it justified to use force? Are the police adequately trained? Has the force lost focus over the years?
Former CBI director Joginder Singh shows where the faultlines lie. "Unlike the Election Commission or judiciary, the police are not an independent agency. They are subjected to political and social pressures that have proved their undoing," he says. Gujarat 2002 is a prime example.
When former Punjab DGP K P S Gill was appointed security advisor to the CM in the riot-torn state, there was only one condition he laid down: no interference. Even Gujarat's top cops admit that after Gill entered the scene in May 2002 - three months after violence broke out - the state began to return to a semblance of peace.
The norm, however, is to play it safe. "Inaction is never punished, action is. And who speaks out for cops?" Singh wants to know.
If a mob lynches a policeman who is merely doing his job - as happened when Bangalore went ballistic at the death of filmstar Rajkumar - the issue gets buried, but if the police open fire to control that mob, they are taken to task.
"However, there is no excuse for what happened in Gurgaon where factory workers were protesting or when the police attacked doctors in Mumbai. Incidents like these are an exception and should be handled the same way," Singh quickly adds.
But while there could be scope for mistakes, there should be none for blunder, says former West Bengal DGP Arun Prasad Mukherjee. In his view, the way to combat these 'exceptions' that trigger public outrage and snowball into bigger issues, is to ensure that cops are not excessively armed.
"The more you arm a cop, the more such problems are bound to arise," he says, adding that even a lathi gives the policeman an option that is easier than negotiation. "I have seen it in my days. If a cop is not heavily armed, he will bank on his mental and persuasive abilities to defuse a situation. A gun gives him an easy way out."
While Mukherjee finds nothing wrong with policing methods on paper, their training is another matter. "An effective and continuous training programme should be worked out for the force across the country.
In fact, there are senior officers responsible for just that, but a conscious effort is lacking," he says. Also, more often than not, there are no lessons learnt from situations that go wrong.
The first response to almost every wrong is to find a scapegoat and transfer him. "A bali ka bakra (sacrificial lamb) is what everyone looks for," says Joginder Singh, agreeing with Mukherjee when he says that nothing really comes out of such transfers.
"The idea of transferring cops as a means of punishment is only for public consumption. It serves no purpose, teaches nothing. Lessons should be drawn from every incident that goes wrong," Mukherjee adds. Except that while the incidents proliferate, nobody seems to be paying much heed.
Be it a murder case, industrial unrest or peaceful protests, police are increasingly at the receiving end for going over the top in situations they are supposedly trained to handle.
To complicate matters further, they're taking on tasks that training taught them nothing about - moral policing. After Meerut's Operation Majnu, policemen are asking live-in couples to get married in Shillong, preaching morality to hand-holding couples in Chandigarh, driving lovers out of parks in Orissa and falling over each other to probe wardrobe malfunctions on the ramp in Mumbai.
Net result: The image of the law-enforcer is plummeting. Recent instances point to the lack of three essential factors of good policing: impartiality, effectiveness and humaneness.
The public perception seems to be that the police is brutal, corrupt and inefficient. According to surveys by Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), 50% of
Indians are not convinced they are helpful. "Those protesting against reservations in Mumbai were students and not anti-social elements. But it's unfortunate that the police can't make a distinction," says retired IPS officer K S Subramaniam.
It all boils down to bad training, he feels. "The colonial mindset hasn't gone after so many years and people are regarded as enemies of the state." Which raises a host of questions: At what point is it justified to use force? Are the police adequately trained? Has the force lost focus over the years?
Former CBI director Joginder Singh shows where the faultlines lie. "Unlike the Election Commission or judiciary, the police are not an independent agency. They are subjected to political and social pressures that have proved their undoing," he says. Gujarat 2002 is a prime example.
When former Punjab DGP K P S Gill was appointed security advisor to the CM in the riot-torn state, there was only one condition he laid down: no interference. Even Gujarat's top cops admit that after Gill entered the scene in May 2002 - three months after violence broke out - the state began to return to a semblance of peace.
The norm, however, is to play it safe. "Inaction is never punished, action is. And who speaks out for cops?" Singh wants to know.
If a mob lynches a policeman who is merely doing his job - as happened when Bangalore went ballistic at the death of filmstar Rajkumar - the issue gets buried, but if the police open fire to control that mob, they are taken to task.
"However, there is no excuse for what happened in Gurgaon where factory workers were protesting or when the police attacked doctors in Mumbai. Incidents like these are an exception and should be handled the same way," Singh quickly adds.
But while there could be scope for mistakes, there should be none for blunder, says former West Bengal DGP Arun Prasad Mukherjee. In his view, the way to combat these 'exceptions' that trigger public outrage and snowball into bigger issues, is to ensure that cops are not excessively armed.
"The more you arm a cop, the more such problems are bound to arise," he says, adding that even a lathi gives the policeman an option that is easier than negotiation. "I have seen it in my days. If a cop is not heavily armed, he will bank on his mental and persuasive abilities to defuse a situation. A gun gives him an easy way out."
While Mukherjee finds nothing wrong with policing methods on paper, their training is another matter. "An effective and continuous training programme should be worked out for the force across the country.
In fact, there are senior officers responsible for just that, but a conscious effort is lacking," he says. Also, more often than not, there are no lessons learnt from situations that go wrong.
The first response to almost every wrong is to find a scapegoat and transfer him. "A bali ka bakra (sacrificial lamb) is what everyone looks for," says Joginder Singh, agreeing with Mukherjee when he says that nothing really comes out of such transfers.
"The idea of transferring cops as a means of punishment is only for public consumption. It serves no purpose, teaches nothing. Lessons should be drawn from every incident that goes wrong," Mukherjee adds. Except that while the incidents proliferate, nobody seems to be paying much heed.
End of Article
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