Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Inside the police system

Unfortunately the police department is always shrouded with controversies. Whether it is the infamous Rizwanur case or the brutal firing in Nandigram that killed many people in recent past, the police department is unable to wash its hands of sin. The daily newspapers or the T.V channels are always churning out new stories that glaringly points out at the notorious acts of the police. Taking bribes and hafta from the market is a common business skill of the police, which is well known, thanks to the hindi film industry or Bollywood. It can often be seen in the daylight that some over greedy and irresponsible member of the police family tarnishing the image of Khaki uniform by accepting ten rupees notes from the truck drivers in important street crossings. Sadly there were several incidents where many such police personals were caught raid handed by the public and beaten up in the road before being handed over to the police again.

Here is another instance of a heinous crime (I don’t know whether it should be an appropriate term to describe the situation) that is executed by the police. This was revealed by a police personal on a candid interaction.

Hope, every one has noticed a blackboard in a police station where types of crime and its rate of happening in a particular area are recorded (in Hindi/Bengali films and even in popular T.V serials and soaps this can be often seen). This is maintained by every police station on a daily basis at the end of the day. Now the system is that the head or the Officer in Charge (OC) of a particular police station has to give a summary of the crime record at the end of the day to the head (Boss) of the particular zone, who generally sits in the police headquarter. Although it is a part of the routine, but providing a summary reflects how effective the particular station is in maintaining law and order in the area. The number of arrest or raid in a day indicates the level of efficiency of the staff of a particular police station. The head of police issue number of cases to the OC everyday, and the later has to adhere to the issue diligently.

Naturally, every OC share the pressure with other staffs of the station to show a colourful crime record at the end of the day to impress his/her boss. Now if he/she is unable to show such colourful record then it justifies that he/she is inefficient in shouldering the responsibility.

Interestingly, it is well known that the police maintain a strong liaison with the criminals in order to extract vital information from them. Apart from this the criminals also help the police in another way. If the OC finds that the number of case filed by the station is insufficient in comparison to the number issued by the boss, he shifts to Plan B.

Now what is Plan B?

According to this plan the OC calls up at the criminal bases or the chief of a criminal gang popularly known as bhai or mastan to supply few petty criminals. Following the discussion they both negotiate a deal in this plan where the bhai sends the desired number of criminals from his gang to the police station and the OC in turn assures him of some information about his rival group.

In another plan to fill the magic number the staffs goes out to patrol at night and picks up innocent sleeping vagrants from the streets and put them inside the lock up and file petty criminal cases.

One shocking revelation by the police man during the interaction was that they often pick up young innocent workers from construction sites and file theft and robbery cases against them. These workers, mostly illiterate comes from rural areas found themselves trap in a conspiracy. Next day when these people are presented before the Court of Magistrate as per the law, they are either charged with criminal cases or had to shell out heavy amount to receive bail.

The police station earns praise from the department due to their efficiency and the system runs effectively. Don’t ask about the innocent people who are left behind the bars or who get bail but are left with scars being termed as criminal. The Bollywood filmmakers are there to create blockbusters on them and the nation will get one more hero to worship.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I believe if each & every member of our society stand together and protest in our own ways we will definitely find a solution to these kind of social evils. We sincerely hope the innocent people will no longer be behind the bars if every member of our society takes small initiaves in their own way as you did.

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