Delhi Police turn blind eye, zero complaints in five districts

Official data shared by Delhi Police showed that officers in at least five of the city’s 15 police districts did not register a single FIR for firecracker-bursting

Nobody burst firecrackers in Delhi on Diwali. Nobody set off the rockets or bombs or sparklers that laced the air with noxious chemical pollutants and kept the city trapped in a deafening din all night. Nobody in the Capital is at fault for the bad air crisis the city now finds itself in. Or at least this is the version of events that the Delhi Police’s absence of enforcement of the Supreme Court’s ban would suggest -- the force registered only about 100 FIRs against those bursting firecrackers across the city; and five police districts did not register any cases at all.

Commissioner Sanjay Arora distributes sweets to cops posted in the northeast district on Diwali night for a job well done. (HT Photo)

The Delhi Police on Sunday chose to look the other way as residents across neighbourhoods thronged the streets, armed with firecrackers of all varieties, setting them off in petulant disregard of directions by the Supreme Court and orders by the state government.

Delhi Police spokespersons declined to comment on the matter. Calls and text messages to Delhi Police commissioner Sanjay Arora received no response.

Official data shared by Delhi Police showed that officers in at least five of the city’s 15 police districts — Rohini, North West, Outer, Outer North and New Delhi — did not register a single FIR for firecracker-bursting.

As a result, pollution monitors spent all of Sunday in deep red, with levels of PM2.5 (an ultrafine pollutant) in some areas surging more than 30 times above the safe limit. By 10pm on Monday, the 24-hour average air quality index (AQI) worsened into the “severe” zone, with a reading of 403.

Anand Vihar was Delhi’s most polluted neighbourhood on Sunday, with a peak PM2.5 concentration of 1,985µg/m3 at midnight — 33 times the Indian safe standard and 132 times the World Health Organization’s (WHO) threshold.In all, at least 11monitoring stations recorded PM2.5 levels above 1,000µg/m3 on Diwali night.

Yet, despite the obvious levels of pollution in the air — thickened by smoke from hours of burning arsenic, barium, aluminium and lead — most police officers in these areas did not book people.

No cases were registered by the northwest district police, which has Jahangirpuri and Ashok Vihar under its jurisdiction. Likewise, no case was registered in Rohini.

The south district police — under which JLN Stadium falls — only registered one case for bursting crackers.

The east district, with Anand Vihar and Patparganj in its limits, registered 29 cases — which is the maximum number of cases registered by a district in Delhi. The Shahdara district police registered 13 cases, while their Northeast Delhi counterparts filed 17.

Despite repeated requests, and the burgeoning pollution crisis, Delhi Police neither issued any official statements on the situation, nor did any senior officers speak to HT on record.

A constable who patrolled the streets in West district cited “emotional reasons” for letting violators off the hook.

“When we said we would book them, they brought in their children, who would then plead in front of us. It became difficult to take action, but we still took action whenever there was heavy bursting of firecrackers,” said the officer.

Some officers seemed to have trouble finding people bursting firecrackers.

A head constable, who asked not to be named, said that by the time they reached a spot after receiving a call reporting a violation, no one could be found bursting crackers. “It became practically impossible to register a case,” said the officer.

Yet another officer blamed the availability of firecrackers in neighbouring states. “Firecrackers were easily available in Noida, Ghaziabad, and Haryana. People were able to buy firecrackers and bring them into Delhi,” he said.

A senior police officer, who refused to be identified, told HT that action was mostly taken when someone made a control room call. However, declined to share data on the number of calls they received on Sunday.

“There were police officials on patrolling duty and they took action when they saw anyone violating the ban or they took action if anyone complained against their neighbour,” an officer from Shahdara district said.

But residents said police patrols did little to dissuade violators.

A resident of Jahangirpuri D-Block told HT that while police personnel did roam the streets on their bikes on Diwali, they didn’t stop anyone from bursting crackers.

“I saw that the police did enter the lanes and they stopped and spoke to one man who was bursting crackers. That man apologised and said he won’t do it again. The police took no action against him. If they had, it might have created some fear in the minds of others,” said Rajesh Kumar, who runs a paan shop in the area.