‘Time to think why cops portrayed as buffoons in films’

In one of the severest criticisms of the police for botching up a probe, the Delhi High Court said it is high time the force finds an answer to their portrayal as “buffoons” in “4 out of 10 Hindi movies”..

In one of the severest criticisms of the police for botching up a probe, the Delhi High Court said it is high time the force finds an answer to their portrayal as “buffoons” in “4 out of 10 Hindi movies”.

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A Bench headed by Justice Pradeep Nandrajog took a dig at the police for shoddy probe while upholding the life sentence awarded by the trial court on March 27 to a private tutor for murdering a student of St Stephen’s college on April 19, 1999.

Priyanka was stabbed to death by Uttam Kumar inside the bathroom of her house in Adarsh Nagar 10 days before her marriage to someone else as he was in love with her.

Perusing the evidence while dealing with his appeal, the Bench found that the convict had “near successfully built a defence around the lapses committed by the prosecution”.

“With pain and anguish we must write that in 4 out of 10 cases we are seeing errors of stupidity committed by the investigating officers. Courts need to overlook them as aberrations to balance public interest in the administration of justice Indeed, it is time for the police to think and find an answer as to why in 4 out of 10 movies in India where there is some role of a policeman in the theme, the policeman is shown as a buffoon”.

As per the prosecution, Kumar confined the girl in the bathroom; bolted the door and stabbed her.

Police broke the door to find the victim dead. The accused was standing with a blood-stained knife in his right hand.

In his defence, Kumar contended he was innocent, was entrapped to come to her house by relatives of the girl who was against the relationship and was pushed inside the bathroom and kept confined till the police arrived.

The court noted that it was an serious error by the police in not searching for the three buttons which were broken from the shirt of the appellant and the investigating officer not seizing the bolt-hole with the screws coming loose when the door of the bathroom was pushed open.