The Hindu : New Delhi News : Delhi police in the spotlight again

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 19, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Delhi police in the spotlight again

Prashant Pandey

With two deaths taking place in their custody in quick succession and another incident of custodial torture reported a few days ago, the Delhi police are once again in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. And at the heart of the problem lies the same old story of policemen trying to be a law unto themselves.

In both the incidents reported during the week, the victims were innocent. In the first case, the victim had himself been rescued from his kidnappers and then detained at the police post for questioning. In the other, the victim died while being "interrogated" for an offence he never committed. Even in the case of alleged custodial torture of a young man, the police were apparently trying to force him to make a statement implicating another man in a murder. Clearly the manner in which these incidents have unfolded can only be described as outrageous.

But this is not the first time that the police have been accused of brutality. Rather, such incidents reflect the unbridled powers that the policemen wield. For instance, in the case of Kishan Kumar, who died in the Shahadara police station on Thursday, the man who complained that his truck had been stolen happened to be a distant relative of the sub-inspector who has now been arrested in this case. So eager was he to solve the case of his relative that he forgot all proprieties of a fair inquiry.

In fact, it is the lethal combination of discretion and the tacit permission to use force at the policemen's disposal that is responsible for giving the force its brutal image. In the absence of an efficient and responsive grievance redressal system, the degree of "freedom" enjoyed by the policemen increases all the more.

The police often argue that they resort to use of force to solve cases as they are under pressure to solve them in quick time. Also, they do not have the back-up of sophisticated investigation techniques, making it difficult for them to confront the accused with solid evidence. However, the policemen can also resort to use of force as a short cut to produce results.

Now, the question is whether these two incidents will result in any change in the way the police carry out their business in future. It would obviously be too much to expect that change will come overnight. Some new steps purportedly aimed at increasing the monitoring of day-to-day functioning of the police and making the officers more accountable for their subordinates' actions have been announced. But whether there will be a proper follow-up is the big question.

For instance, earlier the police had announced a scheme to install closed-circuit television cameras in police stations to monitor the activities of policemen. But the scheme is yet to be completely implemented and made functional on a daily basis.

However, a bigger fear is what if the powers that be view the two deaths as merely an undesirable coincidence and leave it at that. They are aware that in due course media spotlight will shift to other issues and then things would be "back to normal". For their part, the police have already initiated inquiries in both the cases and also arrested three policemen in one of them.

Experience has shown that this is exactly what happens every time. Theoretically there has been a lot of talk of bringing about a change in every aspect of criminal jurisprudence, but the ground realities have remained the same. It is perhaps high time the authorities realise that they first need to change the attitude of the force after which all other things would fall in place.

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