Oh my lonely heart!

 

To continue the saga of law enforcers of my housing complex being prime law violators of environmental laws: 

https://b-b-dash.blogspot.com/2025/12/aqi-and-lack-of-iq.html 

Well, all my entreaties for sparing my ears (and that of many in the complex) fell on “deaf” ears – pun intended. My protestations were ignored as mere errors in taste and of no consequence. Until I sent a legal notice to the Secretary of the Owners’ Association, the concerned Commissioner of Police and West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB). The next thing I knew, there was a call from the DGP urging me to “negotiate” and not to go the legal route. 

“Negotiations” meant being summoned to a Nuremberg trial with the 12 members of the Board of Managers ranged against little old me. I refrained and invited the Secretary to my house and home for a one-on-one. I suggested that the function be held inside the Club house building even though that was not fully as per the rules. However, he had come essentially to inform me that they’d go ahead as planned. My being a Cancer survivor and having developed Tinnitus after moving into this complex and my aged Mom being a dementia patient, etc. were considered of no import and were countered with the argument that New Year Eve happens only once a year. I thought, yes, Durga Puja celebrations happen for only four days a year, Diwali happens only once a year, Chhat Puja happens on only one day or for a week, Holi happens only once  a year, each person’s birthday is on one single day for himself/ herself although I’ve known a particular SP’s son having a birthday every month so that the SHOs could get at least 12 occasions to bestow their bounty and pledge fealty and so on … essentially, the “meeting” was a case of irresistible force meeting an immovable object and ended in an impasse. 

There was one more phone call.  I was asked to practically vacate myself from my own house and whether they could “very graciously” arrange for my accommodation – free of cost, presumably – at ITC hotels. Imagine the discourteousness! 

I didn’t want to go to the High Court and the Green Tribunal. These are vexing propositions at my age and very expensive too. Two of the newspapers carried the story. However, this didn’t deter the organisers the least bit. I presume, they must have managed a “special permission” from you-guessed-it, the Police, although there was no scope for that under the High Court orders. So, I sent out RTI applications for a copy of such order/s. 

I also thought about how to prove the violation in Court. Just an averment or recording of the decibel level by me would be laughed “out of Court.” I googled and found some agencies who measure pollution in air, water and noise level. I contacted several of them but drew a blank after initial promises. I was not even sure whether such measurements would carry any heft in the courts. In desperation, I checked the WBPCB website and found that they had an approved list of such certifiers. I rang each one of them. Some of them agreed but backed out, probably because of cops being involved; however, two of them agreed to arrange the measurements on the appointed date at the relevant times. Until I paid up and they landed up, I was still on knife’s edge but they finally did. 

I also explored the possibility of lodging a formal complaint with WBPCB. What I found was hilarious. There’re a phone no. and an app to do so. The phone no. takes you round and round through “press 1,” “press 2,” etc. until it says, “all our operatives are busy, kindly leave your name and phone no.” Well, I did, over three days and left my name and phone no. and was “left out” by WBPCB. I lodged a complaint twice on the app, received “token nos.” but those disappeared promptly – were they tokens of appreciation, or mere tokens? 

On the day of reckoning, I saw the DJ sets and high-pitched sound boxes being put up. The two agencies I'd engaged did turn up and set up their machines for continuous reading of the decibels. I braced myself for the entire Court ka chakkars. 

Just on the off-chance, I tried the phone no. of WBPCB again. Lo and behold, someone actually did pick up. He was as surprised as me. He told me to hold on so that he could gather a pen and paper – and his thoughts; diligently noted down my name, no., address and the complaint and assured that their team would visit within the hour. I asked him if he’d give me a token no. or a registration no. and he said mine was the first and only complaint so far on the date so 1/(date) was the token no.. So much for “all our operatives are busy.” 

The sound blast started off well before the scheduled time. It was getting progressively unbearable, until suddenly, there was “deafening” silence. I presume, either someone from WBPCB or the Police Station visited or there was wiser counsel. About an hour or so of silence later, there was fairly muted noise – they’d shifted everything indoors into the Club building! 

Even though this was not strictly as per the law and rules, my ears and I could live with this. Saved me a lot of bother – and costs – of doing the legal rounds. All this takes a toll on the nervous system of all concerned. There was a snarky comment on WhatsApp by a member next morning, “Had a lot of fun in the bash! And the best part was that we had it without breaking the law 😂” 

Glory be!

Customs, Police and a cautionary tale

 Recently, a logistics company, Wintrack tweeted: 

From October 1, 2025, our company will cease import/ export activities in India. For the past 45 days, Chennai Customs officials have relentlessly harassed us. After exposing their bribery practices twice this year, they retaliated, effectively crippling our operations and destroying our business in India. We deeply thank everyone who has supported us during these difficult times. 

Customs dismissed the allegations as “serious and false.” Wintrack named three officials, shared screenshots, mentioned bribe amount/s and also “discount” on the bribes. The episode led to such a flood of others pouring out their tales of harassment by and bribery of Customs officials on the internet that the Union Finance Ministry has now ordered an enquiry and also issued a statement. 

Well, I too have a Customs story. 

This was when I was S.P., Calcutta Airport. I learnt that the airport gate leading to the Customs enclosure had become almost a free zone with anyone entering and exiting it freely. This had serious implications for the airport security. The airport is only as secure as all its access points and any breach anywhere compromises the whole system. As per the rules, there were only two ways to enter an airport, either through a legitimate ticket for travel or an Airport Entry Permit (AEP). 

I directed the Police personnel to strictly implement the above rule without any exception, regardless of the gate. I was astounded by the backlash from Customs. Their Assistant Commissioners threatened my officers and even their Additional Commissioner wrote a D.O. letter asking me to “stop such practices which was impacting their rules of business.” When I pointed out that I shall not be able to allow anyone in without one of those two documents because that was violative of my “rule of business,” she chose to approach my seniors. 

Additional Commissioner of Customs was very senior to me in rank and rated audience by the high and mighty in the Police. I received a call from a DGP asking how come Calcutta airport had collapsed under my watch. I politely told him that I was as of that moment sitting in the airport and all about me things were bustling along and I definitely would’ve noticed if it had indeed collapsed. He was not convinced and ordered an IGP to look into the matter. I was accordingly summoned by the IGP to explain. 

What had happened was this. Those days, smuggling from Bangkok used to be big. There were these operators from Fancy Market in Kidderpore, the smuggling hub of Calcutta who used to regularly fly to Bangkok and come back with smuggled goods to the full extent of their purchasing power. After arriving at Calcutta airport, they would have no money for paying the Customs duties or the “alternative demands” so they would be allowed to go out of that gate and auction the goods out at the airport itself (the gate would be crowded with touts in sync with the arrival of those flights) and come back with the money to pay. The procedure is that if the legitimate Customs duties were to be paid, the goods needed to be “officially seized,” valued, and later released from the Customs warehouse against payment of the duty amount. This apparently was anathema to the Customs officials because that would obviate any “negotiations” or other dealings. I also offered to accept a third document, i.e., written authorisation by the Customs officials for any re-entry but that too was not acceptable because it would create a paper trail, hence no possible “negotiations.” 

So I went to that Nuremberg trial chaired by the IGP. I had prepared a two-page note detailing the full picture and submitted it for “his kind perusal.” The IGP was flanked by two DIGs and I was seated facing the three of them and shrinking by the minute. While the IGP was reading the note, the two DIGs took turns to berate and abuse me left, right and centre for “not being practical,” for creating friction with other agencies, for making things unnecessarily difficult for all concerned and so on. This went on for a good 10-15 minutes. Then the IGP finished reading the note, looked up and asked, “Agar smugglers ko tight kar raha hai to aap logon ko kya dikkat hai?” Immediately, the two DIGs changed their tune and complimented me for doing such a stellar job. I breathed again. 

Armed with that validation, I went back and hand-picked four officers with unimpeachable integrity to supervise that particular gate (in the four shifts). The Customs officials and the touts threatened to get them eliminated. I deployed visible and substantial police escorts for them to and from their residences. I also found that after the last international flight at around 9.30 PM every day, there used to be a party in the Customs enclosure to distribute the booty and the “negotiated amounts” collected during the day over sumptuous food and booze supplied from a nearby (famous) hotel and the officials used to be in an expansive mood then, expansive enough to throw Rs. 10,000 or so as tips for each of the hotel staff doing the catering. These hotel guys were also entering without any permit. I personally stopped them and again the Customs officials contacted a lot of my seniors on the plea that I was making them starve. However, this time, it didn’t cut any ice with anyone. 

After the airport assignment, I was posted to Calcutta Police which was a leg up. I was happy. But the happiest was the Customs set up at the airport. I believe, when the news of my new assignment filtered in, they burst into a proper Bhangra in celebration. The Airports Authority organised a big farewell for me – it was an eventful tenure, Purulia arms-drop, two almost-hijacks, a grenade incident and so on. All the agencies operating at the airport, with one exception, participated with gusto. Customs officials were conspicuous by their absence.

Stop whining, start shining

 

I guess this must be so in other departments. In Police, throughout my career, I kept hearing why the politicians and IAS officers wouldn’t let Police reforms happen so the Policing in India continues to be in a sorry state. Frankly, those big-ticket Police reforms as mandated by the Supreme Court are beyond our control but there are a plethora of reforms we should have done by now if we had not been enslaved by the colonial systems and mindset. 

It is entirely within the powers of the SP or DCP to make the process of registering an FIR easier and more transparent. What does it cost to just tell the officers to register each single complaint? Horrible proliferation in number of cases. Does it matter for promotion or posting? We think it does but it doesn’t. When I joined a district as SP, there was a ceremonial hand-over, a sort of passing the baton from the previous SP to me. All the SHOs of the Police Stations and their supervisors attended to witness. And assess the new incumbent, i.e., me! After the event, and after the predecessor left, I found the guys crowding around so I thought they expected some pearls of wisdom to issue forth from my lips. I scratched my head to come up with something and then told them, look, I don’t want any suppression or minimisation. Any complaint that comes should be registered and under the proper section of law. The expression on their collective face was a picture. Then I told them, all warranties must be arrested and that would be a primary focus during the monthly Crime Conference. Till date, I remember the consternation on their faces. 

Words have consequences. 

In the first month of my assuming charge, the number of dacoities in that small district was four. Compared to four dacoities in the entire previous year. I panicked. If I managed to hike that most heinous of crimes, dacoity, from 4 to 48 in a year, where would I be? I made bold to call the one who was above us all, the Director General & Inspector General of Police and told him. He was intrigued and asked why I was telling him such mundane things. I said there was a request: four dacoities were reported in the previous year, I’d “achieved” four in the first month – could he kindly consider only the detection rate and not the numbers, please? He was non-committal. Unfortunately, none of the four cases in the previous year had been detected; the four cases in my first month were not only detected but about 90 % of the property robbed was recovered. I tried telling the DGP but by then, these were mere statistics for him. Meanwhile, crimes against property declined in the district and I was kind of sitting pretty. 

What happens if you commit a crime and disappear? The cops try for a while and then submit a chargesheet showing you as absconder. The Magistrate then issues a warrant for your arrest.  This is sent to the same Police Station where the crime was committed. You become a warranty. Executing a warrant is the least of priorities for an SHO and it’s just a statistic. Every month, during the Crime Conference, the SP or DCP checks how many warrants were disposed off and how many new ones were received and whether, on balance, the SHO is ahead of the game. So, if a particular warrant is never executed/ disposed off, there’s practically no accountability and the criminal gets away scot-free ... 

I checked the number of warranties and it turned out to be 163. This looked like a low number. I collected the details from the Court records and the actual figure turned out to be 5,617. In the monthly reports, I submitted that figure to my higher-ups and, immediately, there was a query as to how I’d managed to increase the crimes so much within one month of my joining. I replied suitably and was rewarded with further scathing “queries.” Until I left the district, these queries and replies continued and for all I know, they may still be going on, 24 years hence. 

Be that as it may, I set about arresting these people in right earnest. 

I found an able partner-in-crime (actually, partner-in-crime-control) in a young officer who was under training in the district. He told me that he was examining the warrants at a Police Station but the moment he touched one particular warrant, everybody was shivering. It was in the name of one Haren Bishu (name changed). I enquired and found out that he was the right-hand man of the local big leader of the ruling party. When the Chief Minister came visiting, he drove the CM’s car. And so on. There were reportedly seven warrants against him. The courts had given scathing observations and orders regarding non-execution of the warrants. When the local leader met me the next day for something else, I told him about the warrants and asked him to get him to surrender. He hemmed and hawed and went away. Two days later, Haren Bishu was detained on a routine traffic offence and the SHO rang me up. I told him to immediately produce him in Court against the warrants. About an hour or two later, I went on a round of the town to check if there was any disturbance. I found all the shops closed and not a single person on the road in that bustling town. Concerned, I asked one shopkeeper (about to close his shop) as to what the problem was and why the roads were vacant. He said, everyone had gone to the Court to witness Haren Bishu’s arrest – it was such a huge event! It turned out there were actually not seven but 23 warrants pending against him, all for heinous crimes like murder, arson and so on. And, he had never been arrested. Next day onwards, there were queues of people waiting to surrender in the courts against their warrants. It made my life a little easier. 

These are small measures but can cause problems for the SP, generally in terms of transfers. I also saw some unseasonal transfers and attempts at transfers. “Lekin, itne badliyon ke baad bhi, hum nahi badle …” 

[Stop whining, start shining]

It nearly happened one night

 

While we talk a lot about the valour of the Army personnel in the context of the supreme sacrifice, we do not realise how many cops die every year in the line of duty and how frequently they “look death in the eye.” To put things in perspective, 26,000 Army officers and personnel have laid down their lives in the line of duty since Independence. The figure for the Police was 35,780 till 2021. At the onset of COVID-19 when the world shut down, some services all over the world needed to be continued with added vigour. Policing was one of them. Over 3.54 lakh police officers and personnel in India were infected with COVID-19 till October 2021 and 2,548 died of the infection. This, not counting their family members who were exposed to COVID-19 due to the duty contingency of the cops. The long and short of it is that in the field policing phase (for some cops, the whole career), every day that a cop sets out for the day’s duty, he has a certain chance of not coming back alive or unhurt. 

For some reason, I was associated with a lot of firing incidents during that phase of my career. It started right when I was under training and attached to a Police station, Malbazar in Jalpaiguri district. Ours was a team of six accompanying forest personnel for seizing stolen timber. No one was arrested. The forest personnel found a lot of stolen timber in a labour colony in Damdim tea garden and were loading them on their vehicle when we were surrounded by a huge mob carrying bows and arrows (poisoned). Suddenly, there was a hail of stones, brickbats and arrows.  The guy standing next to me was hit on the head by a huge boulder and fell. Our training tells us to charge towards the source of attack. However, an arrow is a silent weapon and these criminals were such experts that they also could shoot the arrows with a curved trajectory making it difficult to gauge direction. Anyway, we opened fire and two of the miscreants fell to the firing.

 

At that time, I didn’t know that while the decision to open fire is taken in micro-seconds, the enquiry into it lasts years. At the close of the subsequent enquiry, after everything was discussed and enquired into threadbare, the final question was:

 

“So, was it not possible not to open fire?”

 

To which, I replied, “Yes Sir, it was possible, but then none of the Police team would’ve come back alive.” That enquiry was my real “baptism by fire.”

 

The luckiest thing happened to me during the post-Babri Masjid-incident riots. At that time, I was posted as Additional SP in South 24 Parganas which comprised certain areas in Calcutta which were badly affected. This was hair-raising duty day after day, night after night, seemingly without an end in sight. Several incidents of Police firing happened in the district but the violence and panic continued relentlessly. I think, around the third day, I was deployed to Tiljala Police Station and spent the whole day there dousing small and big fires, literally and figuratively. I returned home at around 10 PM and was having dinner when I received a call from the wife of one of my Dy SPs who was staying in the same colony. The Dy SP was deployed at another Police station area and had come back badly injured. His wife had called up in raw panic because he was having profuse, non-stop nose-bleed and she didn’t know what to do. We managed some doctors and treatment. The Dy SP apologised to me for getting out of action. Apologised!!

 

Just when I returned home after attending to the Dy SP, the phone rang to inform that Tiljala area was up in flames again. I rushed out with my driver and security guard. There is a train track at Gariahat, Calcutta which used to be the demarcating line between Calcutta Police and West Bengal Police jurisdiction. Just as I approached the railway line, I was stopped by some Calcutta Police personnel who told my driver not to proceed. As I have mentioned in an earlier blog, West Bengal Police and Calcutta Police are (sometimes adversarial) worlds apart. I got down from my vehicle, very annoyed and absolutely furious that they had dared to stop my vehicle. Then I realised it was under the orders of their Dy Commissioner who was standing close by. He had been my SP in South 24 Parganas and I was suddenly all deference. He fair shouted at me saying he himself was not able to go in there despite having a full platoon of force and how come I was rushing in with just two revolvers. He also showed me his cane shield which was completely tattered with only the frame left due to the attacks he faced when he made an attempt. As he was berating me, he received a message on his wireless that New Market area was burning so he had to rush off. Sensing that I might take off in my intended direction as soon as his back was turned, he instructed the SHO to surround me and not let me out until the Army column that he had requisitioned for arrived. I went in with the Army column when it came and saw that the situation was not as bad as my senior officer had portrayed; it was far worse.

 

A few days back, at a get-together of retired IPS officers in Kolkata, a very youthful looking person came and sat next to me. When we exchanged our names, I realised he was the same senior officer of that Gariahat night. He had forgotten the incident but I nudged his memory to tell him how I owed my life to him. Had it not been for him and had I proceeded six feet further, I would’ve been six feet under.

 

Somebody up there likes me.

 

Naram garam

 

In the Police, some people are MBAs, the real thing, i.e., Masters of Business Administration, not the Married But Available types. Since popular wisdom is that for civil servants, life begins on the day one joins the service, some of these are born MBAs (i.e., already MBAs when they join), some attain MBAhood (they go for a mid-career course to “improve” their skill-set) and some have MBAhood thrust upon them (they resort to a study programme to tide over some inconvenient chapter in their careers while retaining the government quarters and perks). I happened to belong to the first category but soon realised how an MBA programme truly ill-equips you for a career in Policing. 

Almost at the beginning of the MBA course the teachers tell us about the virtues of being Y type managers and how vile the X type managers are. Essentially, Type X Managers believe that employees need to be coerced, controlled and micro-managed with the threat of punishment to ensure that adequate effort is put towards achieving the business’ goals. Type Y Managers believe that employees being motivated at work is innate. People will accept, and even seek, taking on responsibility under the right conditions. So, one should be nice to one’s staff and believe in them. So I behaved as though any subordinate was a brother from another mother and used to address them as “Dada.” One day, a Sub Inspector fair shouted at me telling me to stop this nonsense. He said all those fancy stuff is for the books. In a uniformed service, I was destroying the whole hierarchy and discipline. That was sabak no. 1.

 

I thought I was a public servant, the public was my client and client was God. As a part of training, when I was assigned to do vehicle checking, I applied the Y theory and was gently waving at trucks to stop so that I could check their papers. All the trucks were just zooming past when my trainer Sub Inspector shouted, “Kya kar rahen hain Dash saab, aise koi rukega kya! Ek ko do danda lagaiye, sab apne aap rukenge. And he proceeded to put his words to action and was immediately and phenomenally effective. So, that was the end of X type and Y type for me.

 

Then, there was this beautiful concept of MBO, Management By Objectives. One was supposed to set the targets jointly with the subordinates so that their involvement and buy-in would be greater. However, when I tried it, all that happened was abysmally low targets and one thousand and one excuses. Meanwhile, my boss held one Crime Conference, suspended a few laggards and transferred a few others and everything fell in place. Thus ended my flirtation with that theory.

 

However, one theory did seem to apply – with some modifications. I found that officers do follow some sort of Maslow’s hierarchy in their evolution in the career.

 

I don’t think, when he joins the service, any officer is already evil personified. In fact, almost all the officers, when they join, are fired with idealism to change the world and leave the society a better place. So, the initial stage of the officer can be characterised as, “I shall do no wrong; I shall also not let anyone do anything wrong.” ISDNW, ISANLADAW. Wherever the officer sees any wrongdoing, he tends to jump in like a greyhound dog and tear at it, sometimes at great cost to himself.

As time goes by, the officer finds that the system is just too big and too daunting and he is just ending up tilting at windmills and getting bloody and bruised without a scintilla of difference to the environment. Then maturity starts seeping in. Now, he modifies the paradigm to, “Okay, I shall do nothing wrong; let others do what they want to.” ISDNW, LODWTWT.

A little later, a little more maturity. What happens is, the officer finds that as he is sticking to his principles, or whatever is left of it, the world has been moving on. His no-longer-dear colleagues who trod a different path have been going from plum posting to plum posting while he has been rotting in the backwaters with unheard-of, un-remembered, un-sung, barely-there assignments like Rules & Manuals, Vehicle Licensing, and so on. Now the questioning starts and he asks, “What is right and what is wrong?” WIRAWIW?

This question leads, with an elegant inevitability, to the fourth phase and the GREAT REALISATION, “No, what was earlier right was actually wrong; what was wrong was actually right.” WWERWAW, WWWWAR.

While the fourth phase comes with certain (may be a lot of) benefits, internally, the officer is never at an easy place. As time goes by and he goes further and further down that slippery slope, he also becomes more and more aware of the price and futility of it all. Finally, corresponding to the self-actualisation acme of Maslow, he attains the pinnacle of “DO NOTHING!” and retires. DN!

 

This is too complicated, really. A colleague once put it more succinctly: 

“Pehle pehle sahab log garam rehta hai; kuchh din ke baad naram hota hai; aur, akhir mein … besharam ho jaata hai.”

Lies, damned lies

 

A few days back, some media reports and WhatsApp groups made much of the fact that as per NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau), Kolkata is the safest city in India for the second year in a row. The reports stated that the total number of cases slid from 18,277 in 2020 to 14,591 in 2021. A report like this should have made me feel good. It scared the daylights out of me. 

Years ago, in Delhi, while I was fresh in service, I received a call from a University Professor’s wife who was a family friend. The Professor was out of station and she wanted to lodge an FIR regarding a theft in her house. She was in raw panic over going to a Police Station. Even when I offered to send my brother to accompany her to the Police Station, she was reluctant. She wanted a Police officer she knew to accompany her so that she would not be harassed. Most law – abiding citizens think several times before visiting a Police Station.

 

An MIT study in an Indian state found that more than 70 per cent of crime victims never reported incidents because many felt that the police would either do nothing or ask for a bribe to file a complaint. More than 80 per cent said no constable had ever visited their neighbourhood. This is despite a 24/7 work hour for most police officers and fairly safe neighbourhoods. Rather than playing victim, we, the Police and ex-Police should acknowledge that there is a problem. People just do not trust us. One of the main reasons is the almost absolute impossibility of lodging an FIR under the appropriate sections of law without “contacts.”

 

As per law, even if there is a false or frivolous complaint, police is duty-bound to lodge an FIR. Only after registering an FIR, they can refuse investigation with written reasons; they can file a report as complaint being true but sufficient evidence could not be collected (FRT); they can file a report that there was a mistake of fact in the complaint (FRMF); and they can file a report that the complaint was false (FRF) and prosecute the complainant. Absent the above, the Police officer should, and must, submit a Charge Sheet (CS). The option they just do not have is not to file an FIR.

 

On the other hand, all over the country, much energy and ingenuity is spent in avoiding the registration of the FIR. Remember the film, “Pink,” where the victims were given a royal run-around as to where to register the FIR? Even that is illegal. Any complainant, approaching any police station, should be able to lodge the FIR there. It is the Police station’s duty to transfer the case to the appropriate police station, after registering the FIR.

 

Why does this happen? Part of the reason is reports and inferences like this NCRB report. NCRB has reported the data as has been received by it. There is no way of knowing how authentic this data is, given such rampant suppression and minimisation. As such, there is no way the data of a city can be compared with the data of another city as the rates of suppression (non-registration of case), minimisation (registration of case under a diluted section of law) and non-reporting of cases vary from city to city and state to state. It cannot also reflect any trend because the rates do not stay the same over time in any place – it depends on the attitude of the leadership, both political and Police, active citizenry demanding accountability, judicial activism and so on. From NCRB figures which are based on such spurious inputs to concluding that a particular city is safe, safer or safest is a gigantic leap of faith. Unfortunately, such headlines and chest-thumping create their own hangover and the figures become sticky upward. Thus, the Police of a city gets hoist on its own petard and will try its level best to keep the figures below previous “achievement,” even if artificially, by simply not recording the cases or by diluting the sections of law.

 

Even without NCRB report, because of the obsession with crime data, every officer would like to keep the figures below his predecessor’s. This is inherently flawed because, if things are transparent, there is no way the crime figures would come down. The population is increasing. The basic reasons behind crime, greed, depravity, economic conditions, police-population ratio, etc. – none of it is showing any improvement. Real justice keeps getting more and more distant, given the burgeoning backlog of cases with the Courts and the Police. Conviction rates remain abysmal.

 

There is also the fear of the system being overwhelmed. The number of Police for 1,00,000 population in India is one of the lowest amongst comparable countries in the world, 152 against the UN norm of 222. The ratio in some of the countries are: Italy (456), Mexico (465), France (422), Germany (336), Pakistan (182), Singapore (810), USA (239), UK (212) and Belgium (334). Many Police officers fear that registering the FIRs without filtration would lead to too many false and frivolous cases being registered, further depleting an already stretched out police force. 

Are these assumptions correct?

Partly through force of circumstances and partly through personal commitment, in 2007, a young SP did something radical in his district, Jalpaiguri – it became known as the “Jalpaiguri experiment.”  In the teeth of severe opposition by his subordinates and superiors, he mandated that all complaints be registered, whether true, false, debatable, whatever. He also started taking action against officers who tried to suppress or minimise. As apprehended, the crime figures in the district shot up immediately, by more than four times, from a monthly average of 249 cases to 1060 cases. However, guess what, the heavens didn’t fall! The disposal of cases doubled. Contrary to apprehensions, there was no significant increase in the number of false or frivolous cases. The court cases reduced drastically. People used to approach the courts because they were not getting the desired remedy at the Police station. When FIRs were registered freely and properly, there was no need for them to go to the courts. The number of persons who surrendered in the Courts went up from a monthly average of 113 to 496. This, in fact, led to a slight decrease in the number of arrests. This indicated that there is a natural tendency for accused persons to submit to the majesty of law unless the eco-system is vitiated by suppression and minimisation. Finally, the conviction rate doubled.

At most, if by some miracle, Police becomes suddenly super-efficient, the rate of increase of cases might come down. Actual reduction in the absolute figures may indicate that there is “efficient” suppression and minimisation or there is gross under-reporting. This would lead to smugness on the part of policy makers, lack of respect of the citizenry for rule of law, apathy, goonda raj and complete vitiation of the fabric of society. After a point, this leads to the public taking law unto their own hands, public lynching, etc.. Decline in absolute number of Police cases scares me.

Oh! Calcutta

 

In West Bengal, West Bengal Police and Calcutta Police are almost worlds apart. They have separate Police Regulations, separate hierarchies and permeability only at the IPS level. I spent around three and half years in Calcutta Police as a Deputy Commissioner.

There is a vast stretch of vacant land in front of Victoria Memorial which is called the Maidan. In 1756, Siraj ud-Daulah had overrun the original Fort William, the English bastion (located at the present GPO, Dalhousie Square). Learning from that lesson, Britishers subsequently kept the area around the new Fort William vacant so that there was clear line of fire, a tradition that continues to this day. No permanent structure is allowed to come up in that area. Even the football clubs have temporary stands. This is also the only breathing space in the crowded city so people go there for morning walks, jogs, political rallies and just getting together.

When I was Deputy Commissioner, one day, a retired Chief Secretary, Mr. Gokul Dasgupta, had gone there for a walk and, probably tired, sat down on a vacant bench. Immediately, two Constables materialized and told him to get lost. When he tried to reason with them, they told him that no one was allowed to sit on that particular bench and that they were deployed just to prevent such a calamity. That would have been the end of the matter but Mr. Dasgupta had been Chief Secretary of the state and was very hurt (‘heart’ as we Calcuttans pronounce it). He called up the Commissioner of Police to enquire why he could not sit on a vacant bench in a vacant land which was open to public access. The Commissioner of Police asked the Additional Commissioner of Police who asked the Joint Commissioner of Police and so on down the line until it was verified that the concerned Police Station, Hastings, had indeed detailed two policemen that day to prevent anyone sitting on that bench. Since it was not clear why, the duty chart of the Constables was checked. This is a chart which details the duty of each Constable each day. It was found that every day, two constables were detailed for that particular duty. The practice dated back to pre-Independence days. Apparently, one day in the mists of time, that bench had been painted afresh and the local police station was requested to detail two policemen to guard it till the paint dried over. Since then, till that fateful accident of Mr. Dasgupta’s “heart”, Calcutta Police had carried out the onerous duty every single day with unflinching dedication, devotion and courage.

Just a few days after this “incident”, I was visiting Victoria Memorial with my wife. After a stroll, we sat down on a bench – a different one. Immediately, one guy in plainclothes popped up demanding to know why I was doing such nongrami (bad behaviour). When I couldn’t figure out what nongrami, he demanded to know why I was going around with a female. I politely informed him that I had every right to go anywhere with my wife. He further demanded to know what proof I had that she was my wife. The conversation was rapidly escalating towards economics, i.e., demand and supply of money when my security guard who was at a distance came running and shouting at this chap in Hindi, “Tujhe pata nahin, kisse baat kar raha hai…” Seeing my security guard, my tormentor promptly came to attention. I checked where he was posted. It turned out that he was not even a cop. He had been a Constable in Reserve Force of Calcutta Police but had been dismissed for such activity. However, he had continued with the “activity.”  

I also had the opportunity (burden?) of performing election duty in a very sensitive constituency thrice. This duty essentially involves going from booth to booth with a contingent of force and checking against any disturbance or malpractice outside the booths. (Police is not allowed inside the booth unless called by the Presiding Officer.) Every round, I was asking what percentage of votes had been cast. It was steadily going up – 10%, 12%, 15% and so on. By around 12.30, the poll percentage was about 30% across the booths. I ordered that, barring a small standby force, we should all have lunch and resume after half an hour. I resumed patrolling at 1 PM and to my horror, in all the booths, the polling percentage had dramatically climbed to 60 – 70 %. Not only had certain political “managers” figured out by then exactly who all had not voted, they had also monitored my movements and realized that that was the best window to stuff the ballot boxes. No violence, no disturbance on the surface; just a “scientific temper” and “dedicated” Presiding Officers.

The second time, I dispensed with a general lunch break, made everyone eat dry food in the vehicles, and have non-stop patrolling. At the end of a very tiring day, my officers and I were sitting at the Police Station, congratulating each other on an incident-free day of free and fair polling and awaiting the order to stand down. One Inspector who resided in the area rang up his home to check regarding voting by his family members and by the end of the phone call, his face fell. His wife told him that she, along with 40 other families in the colony, had gone to cast their votes but already some others had cast the votes in their place.

The third time, we tried to guard against these problems as best as we could. However, we had not accounted for the advancing scientific temper of the political “managers.” At the end of the day, we realized that, mysteriously, all the lifts in all the buildings had gone out of order. The area is full of skyscrapers and naturally, a large number of genuine voters in the higher floors could not come to vote. The beauty of the scheme was that, in those pre-cell-phone, unconnected times, every one thought that this was the case in his building only so there was no complaint to the police or anyone. The poll percentage remained high at 70 %. Since then, during every election in Calcutta, cops tended to be posted at the lifts of many high-rises since the previous evening.

Calcutta is now Kolkata. Calcutta Police is now Kolkata Police. May be, things are much different now.

[Calcutta traffic police in the 1920s – a portrait]

 

                                                                                                      [Names changed to protect identities]

 

What the cop and the bribe did next

In my childhood, I had heard a popular rhyme, “Machha khaiba ilisi, chakiri kariba polici,” meaning, “out of all the fish in the world, the choicest is Hilsa fish; out of all the jobs in the world, the best one is that of a cop.” In the India of the early 1960s characterized by low incomes, job attractiveness tended to be measured by the potential for illegal gratifications. The incomes have gone way up, even in real terms. India is no longer the land defined only by snake charmers, rope tricks and abject poverty. However, Police continues to be associated with rampant corruption. 

At the police station, registering a case, investigation, decision to arrest, submitting of chargesheet, closing the case; each stage of the game is marked by what is euphemistically referred to as “give-and-take.” I once got hold of a “(top) secret” register of a police station under my jurisdiction. The double entries of income and  outflows were so perfect that I thought even my accounts teacher at IIMB could have learnt a thing or two. All collections were written on the left-hand side and all outflows including balance were given diligently on the right-hand side. It was also actually “audited by an internal Committee!” To my horror, I saw my own name and designation on the outflow column each month so I confronted the SHO (he is called OC in my cadre). He explained that the rate was fixed by one of my predecessors and it continues until a different rate is fixed by another officer. Since unfortunately (unfortunately?) I wasn’t taking the money, that share used to go into an escrow account to be spent informally for certain specified purposes. Similarly, the rates were fixed for each rank. Interesting part was, a person was entitled to his share of the monthly pie only if he was on duty for at least one day in the calendar month. That is when I understood why all Earned Leave applications were of 27/ 28 days and never subsumed an entire month. If anyone was unfortunate enough to forfeit his share like this, that again went into the escrow account. Every police station also annually appointed someone as a “dak master”, through auction, to fulfil the collection target. Anything beyond that was his profit.

The dak master “supervises” the various organs of “collection.” The constabulary extorts money from the hawkers, footpath dwellers, truck and bus drivers and so on. This is the visible corruption but actually accounts for a miniscule portion of the take. The investigating officers concentrate on the complainants, witnesses and the accused. The SHO acts as the “gatekeeper” for registering of criminal cases and arrests. There is of course the “hafta,” weekly collections from shopkeepers, businesses and criminal operators. And so on. I found that there was a lot of demand for “night patrolling.” Usually, every Police Station has one jeep dedicated to it. This jeep is affectionately called “Laxmi Bhandar” by the Police Station staff. Interestingly, the night patrolling often doesn’t end with the night and continues to daylight hours, including and up to the afternoons. 

 

As Additional SP, on the day of assuming my second charge, I was sitting in my office, feeling sleepy and waiting for some file to come or the telephone to ring. The first call was from the-person-who-must-not-be-named but who was rumoured to be actually running everything! No, not the CM or the Chief Secretary but someone whose ante chamber used to be replete with Chief Secretary/ DGP aspirants and history’s unmarked graves of discarded careers. I was jolted out of my stupor and sat bolt upright. Nearly saluted invisibly. Here is the conversation:

“You’ve joined. Good, good.”

Me: “(Sputter, sputter)”

“Your officer visited someone I know regarding Police verification for a government job. He has made such a huge demand that this person is not able to pay. Please see if something can be done.”

Me: “Please tell him not to entertain any such demand. I’ll check.”

“No, no. Whatever normal expectation would be fulfilled. I’m just requesting because the demand is way higher than normal.”

A threshold of corruption seemed the accepted norm.

Same office. Another day. A Deputy Magistrate visited me and told me that his sister had got admission in a prestigious medical institute in London but was not able to go because one of my officials was harassing her for money for giving the Police clearance for her passport and the amount was beyond their capabilities. When I started the enquiry, the girl’s father pleaded with me not to proceed because that might antagonize the official even further and, as a result, his daughter would not be able to go. I reassured him, arranged for all the clearances, placed the official under suspension and initiated a Departmental Enquiry. These enquiries proceed at their own pace. Three years and two further postings of mine later, the Enquiry Officer and the charged official landed up in my office to formally record my statement in the enquiry. After the formal process was over, I asked the official where he was posted those days. He smugly replied, “You see, Sir, you suspended me about three years back. After that, I’ve never bothered to return to office.” Apparently, he had already earned so much illegally that he found managing his money and attending to his myriad private businesses more profitable. He was only interested in completion of the enquiry so that he could resign and his pension would be forthcoming.

 

[to be concluded]

Return of the cop and the bribe

 

The views and the responses around the previous blogpost have prompted me to add a sequel.

Once I was sitting at a Police Station when a local leader walked in with information and desire for information. After his need for information regarding arrest of some of his supporters and action on his complaints was satiated, he launched into a diatribe on all that was wrong with everything around him. He raved and ranted about how the PWD engineers were indulging in corruption on an unimaginable scale, how much the general public was duped by them and so on. I asked him why then he always targeted the Police in his critical speeches all the time and never mentioned PWD. He said if he talked about even grand corruption by any other department, people might hear but would not listen. On the other hand, even petty corruption by Police strikes a familiar chord with his audience. As a leader, he needed to say what the people wanted to hear. This is one of the reasons Police corruption is talked about so much – corruption by the Police is much more visible. However, that doesn’t wish away the problem. Whether corruption is more in the Police than in other departments and agencies or less, Police corruption is a stark reality.

How and why does the Police corruption take place? Actually, Police functioning is one of the most supervised government services. The rules and regulations are watertight, the inspection and monitoring systems are rigorous and there are layers upon layers of supervision. Why then? Part of the answer (but not the whole answer, by any means) lies in the origins of Policing in India.

During Mughal rule, there was only rudimentary policing although terms like Daroga, Kotwal, etc. seem to be of Mughal origin. During this period and early British rule, the Policing function did not command a salary. The person entrusted with the job used to collect cash and kind from the population and traders in his area to pay the compensations for himself and his staff. The biggest source of income used to be the weekly haats (markets) and thus hafta became synonymous with Police corruption.

For a while, the zamindars were held responsible for the crimes committed in their areas. Lord Cornwalis reforms of 1792 removed this responsibility but tasked the zamindars to report crimes. This created an anomalous situation as crimes and criminals became a major source of income for the zamindars and it was in their interest not to report the crimes. When the Policing was organized along more professional lines, the accountability to the public was conspicuous by its absence in the ethos and the working. With that background and the constant need to keep the official crime figures down, suppression and minimization of crimes/ cases got deeply entrenched in the Police DNA even though as per law, every complaint, even a false one, is mandated to be recorded as an FIR. In case of a false complaint, there are provisions to prosecute the complainant, but only after registering the FIR. Police can refuse investigation but only after due documentation and recording valid reasons in writing. There is no discretion to refuse to even accept a complaint. Unfortunately, this “unavailable” discretion is used for serious corruption.

When I was an IPS probationer and was visiting my brother studying in Delhi, his bicycle got stolen. I accompanied him to the Police Station to lodge a complaint. Then I realized how difficult it was to register an FIR in India. It would be hours before the duty officer would even look at you. If and when he does, he would bark rudely as to why you’re disturbing him. This particular duty officer demanded Rs. 100 to lodge the FIR. When I introduced myself as an IPS probationer, he said, “Aarey aap toh ghar ke hain, 50 rupaya mein ho jayega.” A discount! The Police Station was in the office complex of the DCP and this was happening literally under the DCP’s nose. I had to meet the DCP to manage to lodge a First Information Report FREE OF COST. As to the investigation … my brother is still waiting for any news and I have retired from the service.

The situation was bad when I joined the service. Later, it was worse rather than better.

In my cadre, for any officer working in outlying districts, a visit to the state HQ on official work used to be nightmarish. There were two government guest houses which used to cater to all of us from different services and many times, the rush was too much. One had to practically beg and plead with the concerned officials for accommodation. Other suitable accommodation was beyond the reach of our pockets and the travelling allowance. After a lot of efforts, the IPS officers pooled in certain resources and, with a bit of help from the government, managed to create an eight-room IPS Mess in the city in the early 1990s. This was a godsend and made all of us feel relieved while visiting. Long years later, when I returned to the cadre after a central deputation in 2009, I checked into the IPS Mess and had to stay there for about two months before getting official quarters. I was surprised that for almost the entire period, I was the lone occupant in the Mess. Intrigued, I asked the Mess officials how come. They said, things had changed for the better. The officers of the outlying districts preferred to stay in 5-star hotels when they visited. Change for the better indeed! The pay and travelling allowances remained a pittance. When I quizzed further as to who paid for the 5-star accommodation, there was a telling silence …

 

[to be continued further]