E-Paper
‘Lax, Lacking & Lackadaisical’: Five suicides in five weeks expose police ‘inaction’
When asked about the cases, special director general of police (DGP), Law and Order, Prashant Kumar, said that action has been taken against erring cops in all these cases.
LUCKNOW Despite tall claims, the bull of lawlessness still seems to be raging in the state. In the past five weeks, U.P. Police has failed to help five victims of injustice, resulting in their tragic deaths. In all five cases, senior police officials swung into action only after the aggrieved ended his/her life.
The five cases include that of the Pilibhit-based man who killed himself after police failed to act on time in his daughter’s rape case. Similarly, the father of another rape victim in Jalaun also committed suicide allegedly due to police ‘inaction’. In the third case, a rape victim killed herself in Sitapur and in another case, a woman who faced a rape bid killed herself. In the fifth case, a civil service aspirant hanged himself after allegedly facing harassment. He was allegedly being asked for a bribe by local cops in Lucknow.
In this context, Madhu Garg, the state president of All India Democratic Women Association, has said that police have followed the same work pattern for the last several decades in Uttar Pradesh. “Firstly, the cops try to not take any action at all, then they deploy delay tactics. They act only where there is pressure from the public, senior officers, and politicians, or after fulfilment of their demands to grease their palms,” she added.
Garg further said that cops always harass common people with no links to higher authorities. “Their tactic is to delay action and it has not changed under this state government. All these five recent incidents reflect the common man’s apathy. They had to end their lives fighting for justice. Meanwhile, senior police officers wake from their slumber only after grave steps by the victim or their family members,” she said.
Echoing her opinion, Lucknow-based lawyer Rohit Kant Srivastava said that cops do not work on common man’s complaint until they approach them through any higher authority. He added that lower-rung cops will never improve and therefore, supervisory officers must keep a check on things at their end to ensure that a common man’s complaint is also heard properly at the police station and the outpost.
When asked about the cases, special director general of police (DGP), Law and Order, Prashant Kumar, said that action has been taken against erring cops in all these cases and stern directives have already been issued for proper redressal of common man’s complaints.
The Special DG said that officers at the district level have already been asked to ensure that the complaints of rape and crimes related to women and children are registered as per the guidelines issued in the past, and swift action is taken.
Suicide cases exposing police ‘sluggishness’
May 17: The father of a 14-year-old rape survivor hanged himself to death in his village under Amaria police station of Pilibhit district. Earlier, three youths kidnapped his daughter and one of them raped her after taking her to his relative place on May 10. The relative, however, handed over the girl to the local police, after which her family members were allegedly pressurised to ‘compromise’ instead of lodging an FIR and arresting the three accused. Senior police officers took cognisance of the incident only after the suicide of the victim’s father and suspended the police station in-charge and arrested all three accused.
June 5: A 40-year-old rape victim’s father hanged himself in a village under Eit police station of Jalaun. He took the extreme step allegedly over the delay in police action. The father of the 15-year-old gangrape victim was allegedly chased away from the police station on May 31. Local cops even threatened to frame him in some case as per reports. The FIR was lodged against the three accused, including a couple, on June 4 only when it came to the knowledge of Jalaun SP Iraj Raja after the girl’s father uploaded his complaint to Chief Minister’s JanSunwai portal on June 3. The girl’s father, however, ended his life in the wee hours of June 5. After the suicide, Eit police station in-charge Nagendra Pratap Gautam and sub-inspector Ashok Kumar were suspended for the delay in the action. The accused couple was arrested immediately while the key accused was not arrested as he was already in jail in another case. The police further sought his custody in this case to initiate further action against him.
June 9: A rape victim hanged herself from the ceiling of a room at her house in a village under Tambour police station of Sitapur district. She was kidnapped by three of her Muslim friends on the night of June 4 and gang-raped. Local police started mounting pressure to compromise when the girl’s family approached the police to register FIR the next day. The police arrested the three accused only when some Hindu outfits started a protest over the inaction and only after the suicide of the victim.
June 12: A 22-year-old civil service aspirant Ashish Verma from Gahod village under the Rahimabad police station allegedly committed suicide. Previously, he had accused cops of the Rahimabad police station of forcing him to take the extreme step. He said the cops were regularly harassing him and demanding money from his family while threatening to frame him and his brother Manish Verma in the case of attacking a person with whom they had a monetary dispute over ₹2,000. The cops were demanding ₹50,000 to settle the issue. After the suicide, three personnel of the police station were removed and sent to the police lines and an inquiry was set up against them in the matter.
June 21: Five days after complaining about a rape attempt, a 16-year-old minor Dalit girl was found hanging at her house in a village under Haidergarh police station of Barabanki district. Her family members alleged that the girl committed suicide due to the delay in the arrest of the accused even though the FIR was lodged on June 17 itself. They said she was depressed since the incident. The Barabaki police unit held the key accused Sonu in a police encounter in which he suffered an injury in one of his legs. In this case, sub-inspector Yogendra Pratap Singh has been suspended reportedly for negligence in the case investigation and a departmental inquiry has been initiated against him.
