Two wrongs of UP police: Subrata gets carrot, stick for doctors

For a while, in fact some two-three days, it seemed the police had changed their ways completely to the extent you couldn’t recognise them. Like when with a non-bailable warrant from the Supreme Court, they spent five hours in Subrata Roy’s palatial residence, waiting for his convenience to depart into custody. Like when they decided to take him to a well-appointed forest department’s guest house after shooing away any picnickers around it.[caption id=“attachment_1420797” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sahara Group chief Subrata Roy in police custody. PTI[/caption] Like they decided that since the court that acknowledged his arrest but did not specify if Roy was to be taken to a police station, not mentioning if the custody allowed, without the word ‘remand’ in the order. Like when an accused in one of the biggest frauds where he defied the Supreme Court and tried to run circles around the Securities & Exchange of India (Sebi) was given the benefit of doubt and spared the rigours of a police lock up. Police lock up are the places where the lesser mortal like Bharat Shah, Harshad Mehta, Ketan Mehta were taken to and where A Raja, Suresh Kalmadi, Kanimozhi too spent time. Like when the police dropped name of people on the security detail who were to keep an eye on Roy at the request of one of his aides. Like they decided to take him from Lucknow to Delhi for being presented to the Supreme Court on 4 March by road—we don’t know by a police vehicle or a private car but it suspiciously looked like the latter on a few video clips on news TV—instead of by air. Like when he entered the campus of the Supreme Court, the police seemed to have evaporated from the scene, which allowed some of those who accompanied Roy, possibly his personal, private security staff to pounce upon Manoj Sharma who threw ink at him, blackening his face. Like when he stumbled and had to support himself from the pushing he got from the crowd – curiosity seekers or lawyers or the protective phalanx he had, for after all, he arrived in a convoy of high-end cars. Like when the road he travelled in when he reached the national capital region was cleared to let his convey pass unmolested. We don’t yet know where he was transferred from the car to a police jeep. In one video shot, he was in the left rear seat, and a police officer, with a sidearm which only seniors wear, to his right. Looked like a minister travelling on duty. Only then did a few policemen surface after Sharma was pummelled and pinched, one TV video clip showed his ear being boxed and dragged him away, typical police style, to a jeep to be rushed to a nearby police station. Probably he was pushed into the lock up, made to sit on the floor on his haunches. There weren’t any TV cameras to record what happened to him soon after he was taken away for Roy was the centrepiece of the drama. However, all this seemed such a one-off stuff because, around the same time, the Uttar Pradesh Police which had jurisdiction up to Delhi borders had let loose their terror on doctors because they had protested at the assault of one of them in Kanpur. The alleged assaulter was a ruling party MLA. That triggered a strike, protest marches by doctors all across Uttar Pradesh, and we heard the young Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav muttering to some inquisitive reporters that he would look into what had happened. The matter remains without a closure as yet but the TV images are haunting. The constables in Kanpur that night, in uniform, lay about the doctors, thrashing the daylight out of them. What is disquieting is that the police arrived, and the force told by the seniors to close the gates, assured that with shields and lathis, there was little chance of the policemen getting hurt. Then using a handheld loudspeaker, an officer tells the policemen, phir se in saalon ki kamar thod do – break these rascals’ backs once again. Watch it for yourself on this one-minute video clip. There are several bleeps to sanitise the sounds from the mouths of the men who are to enforce law. The shocker comes towards then end. Now, which kind of police do we want? Both are the same, aren’t they? And is there a choice or even hope? These kind of police misconduct is routine, and why can’t, as the Allahabad High Court did, the other high courts take note of what they see on news TV and demand answers? A policeman cannot plough into people, whatever the provocation, and break bones and heads. A lathi charge is to disperse a crowd, not punish them. About how the police becomes subservient before the powerful, thar is the politicians and the uber rich with connections is yet another matter. To avoid that, they need self esteem.