Gujarat Police : Between Frying Pan And Fires !

 

BY R.K.MISRA

Events in Gujarat are an alternating series of frying pans and fires .

Even before the frying pan event of January 29 involving the paper leak of recruitment examinations for junior clerks was to slow down to a simmer, erupted the fire that a ‘fake’ had managed to infiltrate the rigorous process of selection of police sub-inspectors and had been training for a month alongside the ‘genuines’ at the Police Training Academy at Karai in the state capital of Gandhinagar.

Official sources admitted that the fake trainee-sub-inspector  Mayur Tadvi had used a forged appointment letter to gain entry into the academy. The matter came to light during the processing of salary bills of the trainees when  it was found that his name did not exist in the select list. The matter had remained undetected because the total number tallied up as one of the selected candidates had failed to turn up and the fake had filled the breach with a forged letter. He has been booked on charges of forgery and impersonation but his is not the only case. On January 21 , a law student had turned up with documents showing her ‘recruitment’ as a police  sub-inspector and now finds herself facing similar charges of forgery.

In a world replete with ironies, a whistleblower of competitive exam leaks who subsequently turned an opposition politician and also pulled  the plug  on this one through a press conference  finds mention in the official statement as one seeking to obstruct the inquiry initiated by the academy and for tarnishing the image of the government !

The  Gujarat police has been in the news for all the wrong reasons and so has been  its training Academy. Last December, published reports had hinted at some young serving officers being honey-trapped by a young girl who had allegedly lured them through mobile chats and selfies and subsequently into intimacy and thereon to blackmail. This news spread like wild fire in the police circles of Gujarat and thereon into the bureaucracy. It remained the reigning topic of discussion among civil servants for weeks with the amount under extortion rising in direct proportion to the spread.

No complaint was filed as is usually the case involving the state administrative officialdom  and its  unwritten ‘brotherhood’ understanding akin to the Omerta, the south Italian code of silence and honour. A discreet  enquiry was undertaken and  the identity of the woman in question was cracked. Thereafter an open inquiry has been ordered to be conducted by a deputy director of the training institution concerned. However, the results of this enquiry is anybody’s guess.

The proximity of the cops to the elected leadership is a vicious circle that feeds on each other with officers dependent on their good graces for lucrative posting with all their attendant benefits and buybacks as well as the pitfalls of  falling out of lines, as many have realized to their chagrin.

Thus it came as no surprise when five people were arrested by the Gujarat anti-terrorist squad(ATS) for a bid to extort Rs 8 crores from a top retired cop. The alleged ‘bid’ was made while the officer was still in uniform and among the five arrested was a member of the  Baxi Panch Morcha of the BJP, G.K.Prajapati who has since been suspended from the party. There was a change of guard in the Gujarat Police  when Gujarat cadre IPS officer  Vikas Sahay replaced  Ashish Bhatia whose extended term ended on February 2.

The charge was that the five had sought to extort Rs 8 crore from the top officer by circulating  a ‘doctored’ affidavit to claim he raped a woman at his residence in Chandkheda area of Ahmedabad, the ATS claimed. The action began after the affidavit of the woman went viral on social media. The  married woman had claimed that  the cop had raped her twice on the pretext of helping her in a criminal case registered against her brother. The ATS press release said that the doctored affidavit was being used in an attempt to extort Rs 8 crores from the cop. The five have been booked for criminal conspiracy and extortion, among other charges.

The merits and demerits of the case under investigation apart, what is striking is the sheer gall of those involved in planning to blackmail a senior police officer and the outrageous amount sort to be extorted. Is there a growing perception  amongst extortionists  that potential police officer targets possess this level of personal money ? Such a  popular perception can have a very damaging fall-out.

A case in point is that of nine Gujarat cops  who have been booked over the arrest of the abduction of a person from Ghaziabad on December 26 in Uttar Pradesh to Surat. The FIR was filed after his wife knocked  the doors of the judiciary on January 3, failing to get a satisfactory answer from the Ghaziabad cops  which directed booking the nine cops. It was only after  the wife moved for contempt and  the court issued notice that the UP cops relented. The  Ghaziabad  police is reported to have told the court that the man had been moved from UP to Gujarat without following the due process of law as required. The Gujarat cops have been booked for voluntarily causing hurt, house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint, kidnapping, abduction with intent to secretly and wrongfully  confine a person.

The need for police reforms in the country have been long recognized. In 1979 the National Police Commission(NPC) was set up to report on policing and recommend reforms. The Commission produced eight reports, dozens of topic specific recommendations and also a Model Police Act.  But nothing much has come of it. And thereby hangs a tale but more about it later.

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