Seeing beyond police criminality

OF LATE the media, both the print and the electronic, are highlighting stories of police misconduct of various kinds. In a fiercely competitive scene, the media is always on the look out for such ?juicy? stories and latch onto them for a long time. The frequency with which such stories appear seems to show that an increasing number of policemen are displaying lack of discipline and barbaric conduct. The reports also indicate that the men in khaki are getting involved in criminal activities. Even their superior officers appear to be unable to control them.

OF LATE the media, both the print and the electronic, are highlighting stories of police misconduct of various kinds. In a fiercely competitive scene, the media is always on the look out for such ‘juicy’ stories and latch onto them for a long time. The frequency with which such stories appear seems to show that an increasing number of policemen are displaying lack of discipline and barbaric conduct. The reports also indicate that the men in khaki are getting involved in criminal activities. Even their superior officers appear to be unable to control them.

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To find out whether misconduct by policemen was really on the increase I obtained the latest statistics of complaints made against cops from the Bureau of Police Research and Development, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. The Bureau provided me with figures as late as 2003.

The figures told a different story. The number of complaints filed against policemen had actually gone down between 1999 (74,322 complaints lodged) and 2002 (43,393 complaints lodged). However, there was some increase in 2003 when 55,115 complaints were filed against cops.

We all know it’s difficult to file a complaint against the police. But considering the fact that only 55,115 complaints were made in 2003 against the country’s 14,96,276 policemen, it would appear that many people were not coming forward to register complaints against the security personnel.

Police is the law enforcement arm of the State. The society can, therefore, justifiably expect that policemen should strictly adhere to the laws of the land.

However, a number of policemen are found involved in all sorts of criminal activities. Apart from acts of dereliction of duty (such as non-registration of crime, rude and blatantly partisan behaviour, wrongful intervention in property disputes and perjury), some policemen are involved in false (staged) encounters, custodial violence (including rape), robbery, extortion, smuggling, gambling, prostitution, drug running, adulteration of food and drugs, distillation and sale of illicit liquor and money laundering.

People believe that policemen protect and assist each other in criminal activities and that corruption amongst policemen is ‘widespread and well organised”. They also believe that it thrives on account of the willful ‘blindness of superiors’.

At times passive police criminality is much more damaging to the society than their active involvement in criminal activities.

It is the bounden duty of the police to save the life and property of the citizens. Their total passivity in the face of organised attacks by hoodlums during the anti-Sikh carnage in Delhi and other parts of the country in 1984 and the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat are prime examples of such passivity.

Reports frequently appear about upper caste groups committing atrocities on Dalits in the presence of policemen. The very large number of non-bailable warrants, which remained unexecuted for years on end on the plea that the accused were not traceable (while many of them were freely attending their offices, looking after their business or participating in the meetings of statutory bodies) shows the degree of such ‘active passivity’ of police and is a clear manifestation of the breakdown of the criminal justice system.

It is necessary to try and find out why some policemen behave in such an abominable manner. A number of factors seem to have combined to produce this sorry state of affairs.

Though 59 years have passed since we became Independent, the police continues to function under the archaic Police Act of 1861. The Britishers had framed the Act in the wake of the uprising of 1857.

At that time, the rulers were only interested in creating a civilian law enforcement agency, which would keep the people under control and prevent another rebellion.

In that set up, the constabulary, which was largely uneducated, was grossly underpaid and superior posts were in the possession of seconding officers from the British Army. Power of ‘Superintendence’ over the police in a State was vested in the State Government(s).

At the district level, the police was to function ‘under the general control and direction of the district magistrate. Duties of police were perfunctorily defined under the Act and penalty for neglect of duties was on conviction, limited to a fine not exceeding three months’ salary and a sentence of imprisonment up to three months. A police official, like other government functionaries, could not be prosecuted in a court of law for any act performed in the course of his duty without prior sanction of the appointing authority (Sec. 197 CrPC).