By Maxwell Pereira: 12.08.2006
When asked to recommend changes in the police a century ago while India was still under British yoke, the Frazer Committee Report of 1902-04 threw up a revelation that "Police are corrupt and oppressive". One wonders why this perception has not changed even after hundred odd years, as the nation enters the 60 th year of self-rule this Independence Day.
After a recent "consultation on police reform" in a northern state the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative observed among other things: "There is a complete lack of honesty… the police system is fraught with corruption… honest police officers are hindered in their work and treated as outcasts – not extended cooperation by their colleagues". Applies equally to any state, I'd say, though it'd be unfair to tar all with the same brush.
It pained me then to receive this extract on Delhi Police from an article in a powerful southern news daily: "…the perception of Delhi Police in the public mind is that it can do anything as long as you talk money – from procuring a simple licence for two-wheelers to getting admission in schools, colleges and even arranging marriages and organising parties! …..the root of all evil, the prevalent corruption – shukrana, nazrana and zabrana, the most common terms for alleged exchange of money in Delhi police circles. Shukrana – given by people who want to express their gratitude for favours rendered by the police; nazrana – a gift because you occupy a certain office; while zabrana – something taken by force".
Against this background, the arrest by CBI last Friday, 11th August, of an ACP of Delhi Police's elite Crime Branch, on charges of corruption, deals yet another slap to wipe out a thousand good works of Delhi Police, which can do without such adverse repeats. Reportedly, it wasn't the ACP's first bump for corruption. More pertinent, despite two similar skirmishes earlier, the officer was returned to Crime branch just this April '06.
The officer's career profile is chequered – bits and pieces emerging from sources who have brushed shoulders with him at various stages. Old timers recall a murder case of the 80s when the body of a woman with multiple stab injuries was fished out of a sewer manhole in Lajpatnagar. The accused, a lawyer and a close relative of this ACP, secured acquittal allegedly with the active help and assistance of this officer.
Credited for messing up the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case, the two earlier occasions when he fell foul of the government's vigilance set-ups are – when in 1995 he was statedly extorting money in Panchkula (apparently, RK Sharma, the main accused in the Shivani case was then the IG there). Later, in 2000, the CBI investigating him for disproportionate assets reportedly found him in possession of property worth several crores - including Hotel Ridge View in Rajender Nagar, and several plots of land across Delhi.
In between, the officer even got decorated for gallantry for an encounter that raised eyebrows – in which kidnapper Dinesh Thakur subsequent to arrest was shot dead while on bail, by a team of which he was a part. This got him out-of-turn promotion to the rank of ACP, something not taken kindly by those senior to him in the list. It is not clear whether he was stripped of the decoration as required per rules, or of his ad-hoc promotion, following investigations by the CBI.
Surprisingly, the officer's name also featured in the 'Team of 9 ACPs' constituted in 2001 by the then Commissioner Ajai Raj Sharma to scrutinise records of dismissed police personnel, to monitor activities of tainted police officials and keep tab on cops-turned-goons!
More recently, the celebrated columnist Kushwant Singh in his 'Malice' column decried 'moral policing' by Delhi Police following a raid on a restaurant bar in South Delhi's Rajdoot Hotel alleging obscenity on the part of bar girls on the premises. The one who conducted the raid, none other than the same ACP – who by now, according to sources, is notorious for implicating people in false cases with an eye on extortion.
His current arrest has come in the wake of the heightened alert following the 7/11 Mumbai blasts, the 8/10 uncovering of a plot in UK to blow up ten or more US bound aircraft flying the Atlantic and related arrests at London airport and elsewhere; and the US alert to its nationals in India over likely 'al Qaeida' attacks on Delhi and Mumbai between 11-16 August. As part of Delhi Police's anti-terrorist drive checking of hotels and guesthouses is routine. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the officer arrested the son of an hotelier in Mahipalpur under the immoral traffic act and allegedly demanded a bribe of 1.5 lakhs not to oppose his bail. On being approached, the CBI laid a trap and effected his arrest red handed while accepting part payment of Rs.50000 through a conduit – an owner of a mall in Karol Bagh's Gaffar Market.
Just one more reason for serious misgivings within civil society about the police: corruption, perceived to be widely prevalent. Citizens' perception that the police leadership is indifferent to this malaise with a tendency to shelter its rogue officers, needs to be remedied. Any prospect of police reforms is unlikely to progress unless the police is seen determined to control its rotten elements. Delhi Police needs to act.
abridged version titled: Kill Corruption, Save police Image
in the Hindustan Times: Page-5: Thursday, 17 Aug 2006
http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/Default.aspx
Comments
sudershan sharma (IPS retd) : sksconsuls@yahoo.com : 17.08.2006
The history of the ACP dug up by you makes a telling story on police management. I am one of those who firmly believe police is more forced or lured into corrution by the corrupt elements than the zabrana type of corruption by the police. And that too against the corrupt, law violators, encroachers and the like. Also I believe that the causes and remedies for corruption and malpractces of the police lie not within but beyond the police.
However cases like the one you have researched prove me wrong. I wish you had been more candid in analysing the action of the police managemet in brushing all the notriety of this ACP under the carpet all this while.
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Saturday, 12 August 2006
Tuesday, 8 August 2006
Covering Inderlok Murders
By Maxwell Pereira
What is it with our media? Why is it impossible for the fourth estate to be realistic and rational while reporting crime and expecting action on the part of concerned law enforcers? Why the headlines “police are clueless” “police groping in the dark” even before police have started investigations after an eye-catching or soul-stirring crime? Does one expect police to be jadoogars all the time to pull out rabbits from a hat with a ‘hey presto’?
It happened again in the case of the recent Inderlok murders – when on July 31, bodies of seven members of a family were found at their ‘D’ Block residence – all killed at one go. Seven bodies under one roof, with throats slashed - of Om Prakash Rathore (45), his wife Santosh (40), four daughters Manju (19), Preeti (17), Dolly (15), Pooja (14) and son Anuj (8) – discovered in the morning.
True, this by any standards is sensation. And for added horror, there were two more, of senior citizens, done to death the same day in Karol Bagh. Nine victims of murder in one day, enough to prompt more than one newspaper to make this the main news of the day with front-page banner headlines under the masthead.
The multiple-murder sent shockwaves in the capital and created a furore in the locality with locals hitting the streets and ransacking the house of a neighbour, with whom Rathore is said to have had a property dispute – leading to deployment of riot police to tackle the situation. In the city of politics, the incident understandably sought to be blown up into a political issue by rival BJP in the Opposition.
By noon, every television news channel screeching away, each competing with the other to ‘break news’. By evening, reportage graduated to theories and analysis, pip-squeak anchors and armchair analysts commenting on taken-for-granted ‘police lapses’ that led to this horror of horrors – for there had to be police lapses for nine murders to occur in a day, or so the media had to project.
And no, the views of some that it is too early to comment on a case like the one occurred at Inderlok, not palatable. Irrespective of the fact there were no indicators pointing these were either preventable, or murders for gain through housebreaking, related violence or intrusion. Nothing short of pointing fingers at police failure would do, or acceptable.
The police commissioner’s own statement not spared too – that this crime is not an indicator of the state of law and order or security in the city. It was scathingly decried, made the “question of the day” for aroused adverse sentiment to vent itself, and indicted even in editorials by the high and mighty know-alls! Within 24 hours, and since, the media mandarins on a tirade – “police groping, police clueless”. Worse, speculation over speculation – of what the solution could be! Irrespective of what harm these red-herrings and diversions could do to investigations that were on.
The case handed over to the Crime Branch, whose investigators battle on ‘midst all the adverse projection – to sift every iota of information, or clue picked from the scene, from people talked to, and whatever else. Soon investigators established that only one person committed all the murders, as autopsy reports proved the weapon used for the killing was the same. Sleuths questioned over 200 people and probed various angles, including property dispute, family feud and a possible love tangle of one of the murdered Rathore daughters.
Hard work and systematic investigation pay dividends. Within six days of the discovery of the gruesome act, the mystery is unravelled. An arrest is made of a close relative, unfolding the diabolical motive behind the killing – a deadly cocktail of family feud and greed for money – within the family circle!
Even before this case is solved, police detectives elsewhere from Karol Bagh travelled far to track down the servant of the Grovers – the other couple that were murdered in the city the same day as the Inderlok seven – to return with the culprit firmly in their custody. That case too solved and duly wrapped up. In both cases an exemplary follow-up and astute investigation resulting in a first rate feat on the part of Delhi Police.
For more on the seven-victim murder of Inderlok – the police zeroed in on accused Sanjay Babu after they found him missing at the cremation and other family rituals after the massacre. A nephew of Rathore's wife Santhosh, Sanjay and his family used to live with the Rathores earlier. They parted ways after Santosh asked her sister to move out, as Sanjay’s objectionable activities (which attracted police trouble) were bad influence for her growing-up daughters. This led to acrimony, to nurse a simmering grudge that grew and eventually boiled over to make him butcher the entire family.
According to police reconstruction of crime based on disclosures, Sanjay murdered his aunt's family for money and to settle this old grudge. When he visited the family a couple of days before the murder he had learnt of his uncle getting an advance of 5 lakhs for renting out a portion of the house and witnessed his aunt giving Rs 50,000 to a relative. With also the knowledge of his uncle’s money-lending business, he expected lots of money to be in the house.
True, there is much more to it that than meets the eye. Many unanswered questions, to wrap matters in a hurry. But the point to be realised is that murders are not solved in a jiffy. Investigation needs time, and meticulous effort. The media needs to be supportive. Not distracting or obstructive. Needs to appreciate and not demoralise the community to lose confidence in the agency they forever need to rely on for safety and security in an evolving-for-the-worse violent society.
08.08.2006: 950 words: Copyright © Maxwell Pereira:
Available at: http://www. maxwellpereira.com and mfjpkamath@gmail.com
What is it with our media? Why is it impossible for the fourth estate to be realistic and rational while reporting crime and expecting action on the part of concerned law enforcers? Why the headlines “police are clueless” “police groping in the dark” even before police have started investigations after an eye-catching or soul-stirring crime? Does one expect police to be jadoogars all the time to pull out rabbits from a hat with a ‘hey presto’?
It happened again in the case of the recent Inderlok murders – when on July 31, bodies of seven members of a family were found at their ‘D’ Block residence – all killed at one go. Seven bodies under one roof, with throats slashed - of Om Prakash Rathore (45), his wife Santosh (40), four daughters Manju (19), Preeti (17), Dolly (15), Pooja (14) and son Anuj (8) – discovered in the morning.
True, this by any standards is sensation. And for added horror, there were two more, of senior citizens, done to death the same day in Karol Bagh. Nine victims of murder in one day, enough to prompt more than one newspaper to make this the main news of the day with front-page banner headlines under the masthead.
The multiple-murder sent shockwaves in the capital and created a furore in the locality with locals hitting the streets and ransacking the house of a neighbour, with whom Rathore is said to have had a property dispute – leading to deployment of riot police to tackle the situation. In the city of politics, the incident understandably sought to be blown up into a political issue by rival BJP in the Opposition.
By noon, every television news channel screeching away, each competing with the other to ‘break news’. By evening, reportage graduated to theories and analysis, pip-squeak anchors and armchair analysts commenting on taken-for-granted ‘police lapses’ that led to this horror of horrors – for there had to be police lapses for nine murders to occur in a day, or so the media had to project.
And no, the views of some that it is too early to comment on a case like the one occurred at Inderlok, not palatable. Irrespective of the fact there were no indicators pointing these were either preventable, or murders for gain through housebreaking, related violence or intrusion. Nothing short of pointing fingers at police failure would do, or acceptable.
The police commissioner’s own statement not spared too – that this crime is not an indicator of the state of law and order or security in the city. It was scathingly decried, made the “question of the day” for aroused adverse sentiment to vent itself, and indicted even in editorials by the high and mighty know-alls! Within 24 hours, and since, the media mandarins on a tirade – “police groping, police clueless”. Worse, speculation over speculation – of what the solution could be! Irrespective of what harm these red-herrings and diversions could do to investigations that were on.
The case handed over to the Crime Branch, whose investigators battle on ‘midst all the adverse projection – to sift every iota of information, or clue picked from the scene, from people talked to, and whatever else. Soon investigators established that only one person committed all the murders, as autopsy reports proved the weapon used for the killing was the same. Sleuths questioned over 200 people and probed various angles, including property dispute, family feud and a possible love tangle of one of the murdered Rathore daughters.
Hard work and systematic investigation pay dividends. Within six days of the discovery of the gruesome act, the mystery is unravelled. An arrest is made of a close relative, unfolding the diabolical motive behind the killing – a deadly cocktail of family feud and greed for money – within the family circle!
Even before this case is solved, police detectives elsewhere from Karol Bagh travelled far to track down the servant of the Grovers – the other couple that were murdered in the city the same day as the Inderlok seven – to return with the culprit firmly in their custody. That case too solved and duly wrapped up. In both cases an exemplary follow-up and astute investigation resulting in a first rate feat on the part of Delhi Police.
For more on the seven-victim murder of Inderlok – the police zeroed in on accused Sanjay Babu after they found him missing at the cremation and other family rituals after the massacre. A nephew of Rathore's wife Santhosh, Sanjay and his family used to live with the Rathores earlier. They parted ways after Santosh asked her sister to move out, as Sanjay’s objectionable activities (which attracted police trouble) were bad influence for her growing-up daughters. This led to acrimony, to nurse a simmering grudge that grew and eventually boiled over to make him butcher the entire family.
According to police reconstruction of crime based on disclosures, Sanjay murdered his aunt's family for money and to settle this old grudge. When he visited the family a couple of days before the murder he had learnt of his uncle getting an advance of 5 lakhs for renting out a portion of the house and witnessed his aunt giving Rs 50,000 to a relative. With also the knowledge of his uncle’s money-lending business, he expected lots of money to be in the house.
True, there is much more to it that than meets the eye. Many unanswered questions, to wrap matters in a hurry. But the point to be realised is that murders are not solved in a jiffy. Investigation needs time, and meticulous effort. The media needs to be supportive. Not distracting or obstructive. Needs to appreciate and not demoralise the community to lose confidence in the agency they forever need to rely on for safety and security in an evolving-for-the-worse violent society.
08.08.2006: 950 words: Copyright © Maxwell Pereira:
Available at: http://www. maxwellpereira.com and mfjpkamath@gmail.com
Monday, 31 July 2006
Beggarly Doctorly Mafias!
By Maxwell Pereira
The recent expose by a television news channel on the nexus between beggar mafias and rogue doctors has once again brought to sharp focus the persistent problem of beggary. In vivid detail was exposed the role of unscrupulous medical professionals resorting to a horrifying and unethical practice of amputating healthy limbs and surgically creating deformities for commercial self-gain, at the behest of beggar mafias.
That the social malaise of beggary continues to flourish with impunity in Indian cities is an under statement. It exists much to the disgust, distaste and horror of the community, affecting public health and environmental ambience of city life. As also tourism, with the unwelcome picture beggary portrays. Interest groups periodically get incensed in bursts and spurts to make noises on the issue – in debates and seminars, in courts, media and government offices, with little effect: And social scientists have endeavoured to highlight there is more to it than the blatant attempts by repressive crime control agencies to criminalize a social problem of poverty, destitution, homelessness, underemployment and unemployment in urban slums and ghettos.
Anti-begging laws do exist. The Social Welfare Departments (SWD) of Governments are tasked with tackling, if not eradicating the menace… and the police are to assist them in this task. Periodically joint drives are conducted to remove beggars from public places – particularly, from roads. Those picked up in Delhi are produced before designated courts, where most secure immediate release on various grounds or assurances. A few get remanded to beggar homes run by the SWD meant for vocation training and rehabilitation. But defeating the objective, their incarceration is never for more than few days. Invariably, all land back at their favourite begging spot to haunt and solicit with added vigour.
The Delhi Government under chief secretary Shailaja Chandra was the only time when some serious effort was made to tackle effectively this menace in the national capital. On 24 September 2002, the Delhi High Court had yet again directed Delhi administration to clear the city of beggars and hawkers – this time, because they `obstruct the smooth flow of traffic'. The order, in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) petition that described beggars and homeless people as the `ugly face of the nation's capital' and as people who, among other things, caused `road rage'. Coming on the eve of the April 2003 PATA Conference, it perhaps demanded more attention to provide an impetus for a concerted operation for clearing beggars off the streets.
Taking cue from the High Court, Ms Chandra tasked me as the city’s then traffic chief for a plan to rid road junctions of beggars. While I had nothing in the ‘traffic’ arsenal to target beggars, we came up with an idea of discouraging and penalizing vehicle owners and drivers who patronized beggars and vendors at road intersections.
The argument was simple. Beggars and vendors constituted an accident hazard while moving in and out of traffic; they also diverted the attention of drivers. And often motorists busy giving alms or buying wares obstructed vehicles behind them after the green light had come on.
So to supplement existing anti-beggary laws and give more teeth to enforcement modalities, we issued a notification – “No motorist shall encourage or indulge in activity detrimental to traffic flows or safety of road users at signalised traffic junctions. Giving alms to beggars or purchasing articles/ wares/ goods from roadside vendors at traffic junctions is an act obstructive to the quick discharge and smooth flow of traffic, and/ or hazardous in nature likely to endanger safety of other road users”. While providing for a fine for violating this rule, respecting the sensibilities of an intrinsically ‘charitable’ people, the notification clarified “it was not to discourage people’s urge for charity, but to channelise charity to right quarters away from traffic junctions.
Enforcement of this notification pinched – and was not palatable to NGOs working with street children. We faced a tirade against the move, and had to counter adverse public opinion fanned by the NGOs. Our stand of a vested interest commercialising beggary, even through maiming and dismemberment of victims kidnapped or recruited for the purpose, was decried by activists waving an old DP crime-branch study finding no role of criminals or mafia behind begging in Delhi. The police’s inability to expose mafia content behind beggary was used to defend the beggar community as a “distressed people” asking police to ‘de-criminalize’ begging as “people do not beg out of choice, but out of compulsion”.
There is for sure a vast segment of beggars who fall in the category of “distressed people”. But I firmly believed in the existence also of beggar mafias to exploit and commercialise the Indians’ tendency to gain punya by giving alms. That crime syndicates working behind begging do exist. And no doubt a large number of people are brought into Delhi for begging.
Also true, the criminal mafia character behind beggary needed more attention of the police, even while the infrastructure created within the SWD could have been adequately and effectively used to fight the beggar menace sincerely. Given the pressures and list of priorities the police are saddled with, that beggars do not come anywhere near top priority should not surprise anyone.
The projection of the ‘plight’ of those deprived of livelihood by my merciless act of sweeping them off the road with a ‘draconian’ law, did not hold water – at least for a while. The Delhi public strongly approved our move. Looking back, even if it was for a brief spell, Delhi’s roads were clean of beggars – the only time so perhaps, in the last over three decades of my association with the city.
31.07.2006: 900 words: Copyright © Maxwell Pereira:
Available at: http://www. maxwellpereira.com and mfjpkamath@gmail.com
The recent expose by a television news channel on the nexus between beggar mafias and rogue doctors has once again brought to sharp focus the persistent problem of beggary. In vivid detail was exposed the role of unscrupulous medical professionals resorting to a horrifying and unethical practice of amputating healthy limbs and surgically creating deformities for commercial self-gain, at the behest of beggar mafias.
That the social malaise of beggary continues to flourish with impunity in Indian cities is an under statement. It exists much to the disgust, distaste and horror of the community, affecting public health and environmental ambience of city life. As also tourism, with the unwelcome picture beggary portrays. Interest groups periodically get incensed in bursts and spurts to make noises on the issue – in debates and seminars, in courts, media and government offices, with little effect: And social scientists have endeavoured to highlight there is more to it than the blatant attempts by repressive crime control agencies to criminalize a social problem of poverty, destitution, homelessness, underemployment and unemployment in urban slums and ghettos.
Anti-begging laws do exist. The Social Welfare Departments (SWD) of Governments are tasked with tackling, if not eradicating the menace… and the police are to assist them in this task. Periodically joint drives are conducted to remove beggars from public places – particularly, from roads. Those picked up in Delhi are produced before designated courts, where most secure immediate release on various grounds or assurances. A few get remanded to beggar homes run by the SWD meant for vocation training and rehabilitation. But defeating the objective, their incarceration is never for more than few days. Invariably, all land back at their favourite begging spot to haunt and solicit with added vigour.
The Delhi Government under chief secretary Shailaja Chandra was the only time when some serious effort was made to tackle effectively this menace in the national capital. On 24 September 2002, the Delhi High Court had yet again directed Delhi administration to clear the city of beggars and hawkers – this time, because they `obstruct the smooth flow of traffic'. The order, in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) petition that described beggars and homeless people as the `ugly face of the nation's capital' and as people who, among other things, caused `road rage'. Coming on the eve of the April 2003 PATA Conference, it perhaps demanded more attention to provide an impetus for a concerted operation for clearing beggars off the streets.
Taking cue from the High Court, Ms Chandra tasked me as the city’s then traffic chief for a plan to rid road junctions of beggars. While I had nothing in the ‘traffic’ arsenal to target beggars, we came up with an idea of discouraging and penalizing vehicle owners and drivers who patronized beggars and vendors at road intersections.
The argument was simple. Beggars and vendors constituted an accident hazard while moving in and out of traffic; they also diverted the attention of drivers. And often motorists busy giving alms or buying wares obstructed vehicles behind them after the green light had come on.
So to supplement existing anti-beggary laws and give more teeth to enforcement modalities, we issued a notification – “No motorist shall encourage or indulge in activity detrimental to traffic flows or safety of road users at signalised traffic junctions. Giving alms to beggars or purchasing articles/ wares/ goods from roadside vendors at traffic junctions is an act obstructive to the quick discharge and smooth flow of traffic, and/ or hazardous in nature likely to endanger safety of other road users”. While providing for a fine for violating this rule, respecting the sensibilities of an intrinsically ‘charitable’ people, the notification clarified “it was not to discourage people’s urge for charity, but to channelise charity to right quarters away from traffic junctions.
Enforcement of this notification pinched – and was not palatable to NGOs working with street children. We faced a tirade against the move, and had to counter adverse public opinion fanned by the NGOs. Our stand of a vested interest commercialising beggary, even through maiming and dismemberment of victims kidnapped or recruited for the purpose, was decried by activists waving an old DP crime-branch study finding no role of criminals or mafia behind begging in Delhi. The police’s inability to expose mafia content behind beggary was used to defend the beggar community as a “distressed people” asking police to ‘de-criminalize’ begging as “people do not beg out of choice, but out of compulsion”.
There is for sure a vast segment of beggars who fall in the category of “distressed people”. But I firmly believed in the existence also of beggar mafias to exploit and commercialise the Indians’ tendency to gain punya by giving alms. That crime syndicates working behind begging do exist. And no doubt a large number of people are brought into Delhi for begging.
Also true, the criminal mafia character behind beggary needed more attention of the police, even while the infrastructure created within the SWD could have been adequately and effectively used to fight the beggar menace sincerely. Given the pressures and list of priorities the police are saddled with, that beggars do not come anywhere near top priority should not surprise anyone.
The projection of the ‘plight’ of those deprived of livelihood by my merciless act of sweeping them off the road with a ‘draconian’ law, did not hold water – at least for a while. The Delhi public strongly approved our move. Looking back, even if it was for a brief spell, Delhi’s roads were clean of beggars – the only time so perhaps, in the last over three decades of my association with the city.
31.07.2006: 900 words: Copyright © Maxwell Pereira:
Available at: http://www. maxwellpereira.com and mfjpkamath@gmail.com
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