Police asked to be ‘more careful’ in future

Used to sniffing out the ‘threat perception’ at public gatherings by procedure, the Delhi Police was introduced to the concept of ‘care perception’ by the Supreme Court on Thursday.

Used to sniffing out the ‘threat perception’ at public gatherings by procedure, the Delhi Police was introduced to the concept of ‘care perception’ by the Supreme Court on Thursday.

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The Apex Court, which indicted both the police and Baba Ramdev for varying degrees of ‘contributory negligence’ in relation to the midnight episode which left dozens injured at the Ramlila Grounds on the night of June 4, has asked the police to be ‘more careful’ in the future.

“Rajiv Dhawan, the amicus curiae in the case, had given the concept of ‘care perception’ to the court which should exist side-by-side with a ‘threat perception’,” said a senior Delhi Police officer.

So while the organisers of public gatherings will now have to abide by all the directions of the police, the latter, in turn, will have to ensure that it provides the ‘utmost care’ to each individual present at the gathering itself, the order states.

“The amicus curiae submitted that if the police was bound to act as it did because there was some threat perception based on inputs from the IB, it should have exercised reasonable restraint even while acting on these, instead of going there and taking the kinds of action that was undertaken,” the officer said.

The police have been asked to register criminal cases against police officers who ‘indulged in violence’ and has also been directed to compensate the victims of this violence — 38 of whom, including some women, happen to be police officers. “We will follow the judgement in letter and spirit,” Delhi Police Commissioner BK Gupta said.