BK Singh
Crime graph in the country is on the rise. Even the government has admitted it.
Barring a handful of policemen, people have lost faith in men wearing khaki.
In states like UP, stern steps are taken against perpetraters of the crime. In several instances houses belonging to the accused are even demolished by bulldozers in order to scare other criminals. Even then crime is on the rise. Cases of rape have registered a sharp increase.
However, one big hurdle in lessening and controlling the crime rate are the corrupt policemen and their ways. This at a time the very existence of police force came into being to protect peace loving people and arrest the law breakers and bring justice.
Everything goes haywire when cops legal moral and social duty by which they are bound by law. Many a times when they they cross this barrier things go topsy turvy.
The accused either gets easy bail or is at large or fearlessly moves around as he knows no harm was coming to him.
And the victim, in many cases finds himself behind the bars for a crime that was committed against him. At times, in order to work out a case under pressure police brutalise innocent persons.
They are forcibly made accused, produced before the media for getting false publicity and then before a judicial magistrate who sends him to jail in judicial remand.
Trial begins after a long passage of time and the innocent man gets used to the hardships of the jail. Then comes a time when he gets bail and is also acquitted because of insufficiene evidence against him. Even the judges get to know that this man was innocent but they too are helpless because of the system and process of law.
But there are examples of good and honest officers. The then SSP Allahabad, Pramod Tewari (2001) came to know that an innocent man was falsely booked under NDPS Act.
He was much upset and made personal efforts to ensure the release of this youth.
In nearly all cases the victim and his family members are so much harassed by the police that they start cursing the type of system they are living in. Instead of extending all help to the victim under the law, cops dictate their own terms.
Even in heinous cases like rape, murder, dacoity and loot, the victim is traumatised by the police. With policemen,there isn’t anything like being humane as is evident from so many happenings.
Those having the authority to implement law make full misuse of it with the slightest of opportunity and this is done in order to make money, taking full advantage of the victim’s condition as well as the accused.
If policemen spare the victim and do not take money from him it is because of bureucratic, public or political pressure, it is not out of empathy and their duty.
However, in most cases where police does not get money and is acting under pressure, they more often than not spoil the case in order to weaken it.
This police action makes the case weak when it comes up on the trial stage before a court of law.
The people of the country now understand how police plays spoils sport and this is why trust on them has vanished into thin air.
We all remember the nerve rattling Nirbhaya case which sends chill down our spine even today. It is known as Nirbhaya to avoid her identity.Nirbhay means fearless.
On 16 October 2012, the girl, a physiotherapy intern, after watching a movie with her male friend Avnindra Pratap Singh was returning home at 9.30 in the night from Munirka in South Delhi.
The bus they boarded had only six passengers including the driver. On the way, others in the bus tried to molest the girl but the victim’s male friend gave a stiff resistence.
He was brutally attacked in the moving bus and became unconscious after being hit by a rod.
What followed was most horrifying. All the six accused including the driver raped Nirbhay badly and even inserted a rod in her private part.After this both the victim’s were abandoned on the road.
A massive public protest on India gate was witnessed by the country. This was followed by country wide pritests by public and organizations.
All the accused were arrested. While four of them were hanged to death, one Ram Singh died after allegedly committing suicide inside the jail, although it was alleged at that time by many that police murdered him.
The sixth accused a juvenile then udentified as Muhammad Afroz was given three years sentence only because of his age.
The remaining four accused , Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Mukesh Singh, ( Ram Singh’s brother)were found guilty of rape and murder and were sentenced to death.
They went on to appeal at various forums against their death sentence but all court’s rejected their plea.
At the end they approached the supreme court but the court upheld their conviction.
Three days later in March 20, 2020, they were hanged to death as a blot in the name of humanity.
As public outrage mounted Nirbhaya was shifted from Safdarjang hospital in Delhi and flown to Singapore where she was admitted to Mount Elizabeth hospital.
But eleven days later, she succumbed to her injuries. Nirbhaya’s struggle and death became a symbol of women’s resistence to rape around the world.
Films and documentaries were made on her stiff resistance that she gave to the accused by biting several of them.
Police and government both came under heavy public fire. Fast track courts were set up in order to get speedy justice to the accused. But still this case took seven years.
Two years after the crime the victim’s father regretted for not getting justice.
Like this case, police in the Calcutta rape and murder has drawn much public anger.
Look at the manner in which they behaved with the victim’s parents after they came rushing on getting the false news of suicide committed by her.
Why did they compel the parents of the victim’s to keep waiting to see the body of their daughter for three hours outside the crime scene.Under whose influence they were acting with such cruelty.
Which authority directed them to stop and keep the traumatised parents waiting.
If all these allegations are true, the Calcutta police is worse than wild animals.
Even wild animals make a kill only when they are hungry else they let animals go.
What prevented them from stopping a mob heading towards the RG Kar hospital where male and female doctors were staging peaceful protest.
Shaken by the angry mob’s entry doctors ran for their lives screaming in fear of being killed by the mob. No body knows what could have happened to many doctors including female doctors in case the mob had caught hold of any one of them.
As is widely known mob fury is capable of doing anything. They could have killed a few more doctors. Who knows. But this could not happen.
The mob vent it’s anger by vandalising, breaking and destroying things. They completely destroyed the emergency ward and some other buildings.