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`Beating' the police image

A BEAT constable has always been considered crucial to the police image as well as crime prevention. However, beat constables of the Delhi police have come to be associated with harassment and extortion. The common belief is that if you grease their palm they will look the other way.

For instance, common citizens feel that a beat constable surfaces only if any construction activity takes place in his jurisdiction. Obviously, the constable is authorised to question the authenticity of the construction. And, according to the rule-book, if a construction is illegal, the constable is expected to inform his superiors who in turn should take necessary action. If it is not, the construction should be allowed to go ahead.

The beat constable does nothing of this sort. Instead, he demands a certain cut to allow the construction activity -- whether legal or illegal -- to continue. A glaring testimony to this is the rampant illegal construction activity going on in different parts of the Capital.

But, it is not only the constables, but even the local level employees from other civic agencies ask for their pound of flesh.

Not to forget politicians who have their own petty interests. If the owner coughs up, he is allowed to proceed or else the construction becomes "disputed''. A common citizen would go to the extent of alleging that constable are involved in allowing illegal construction, encroachment and other such things after taking a cut.

While the police would like to maintain that it is an extreme view and not everything is bad about them, the allegations are not wholly unfounded. There have been many cases of constables and head constables being arrested for extortion, or suspended and penalised for allowing an unauthorised activity to continue in their areas. It is common knowledge that places like markets are considered "lucrative'' by the personnel. In one case, eight constables who were sent to the Lines had allegedly returned to their beat -- a major market -- after proceeding on leave for two days. They left only after senior officers intervened.

As a police officer said: "Such persons do not realise that they are spoiling the image of the entire force.''

The answer to the problem may lie in ensuring a better regulatory mechanism and making the senior officers accountable for the conduct of their men. It must not be forgotten that such police personnel are often alleged to be working "under instructions'' from their superiors. However, if a certain act of omission or commission comes to light, it is the constables who had to bear the brunt, while their superiors remain relatively unharmed. This despite a generally accepted and stated policy of holding their immediate superiors responsible for the conduct of their subordinates. The exercise stops after punishing the constables or head constables.

In fact, for all practical purposes it has become a vicious cycle. Unaccounted money and illegal practices together with slack monitoring and an unaware public have led to institutionalisation of corruption. Any talk of police reform would have to take this malaise into account.

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