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A case of complicit policing at JNU gate

The alliance of baton wielders and power wielders is nothing new in Indian polity. Its new low was evident recently from the open support extended by the RSS-dominated UP establishment to the racist ‘go to Pakistan’ abuse hurled at innocent Muslim bystanders in their own backyard, by the Additional SP of Meerut, during the hotly debated anti-CAA stir. The guilty officer is yet to be officially censured.

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Vikash Narain Rai

Vikash Narain Rai
Former Director, National Police Academy, Hyderabad 

It could be one of the blindest police tales of political complicity, the one that simmered at the main gate of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on January 5, a cold Sunday evening. There seems to be no other way to describe the legal trilemma, coerced for hours together, by the simultaneously existing unlawful assembly of violent hooligans taking law in their hands, an academic and political leadership of repute put under constant threat from them and a vast police presence expressing its rude inability to act in the situation. And all this, in full media glare under nationwide live telecast!

The hooligans, in playing out their script, showed no respect for law, the police paid scant attention about law enforcement, their primary task, and the rest of the gathered lot and the countless TV viewers cannot be blamed if they silently swallowed a loss of faith in the redeeming ability of the legal machinery.

Earlier in the day, a tussle which turned into a clash between warring groups of anti and pro-fee hike students on the campus over registration for the next semester, had led to a blunt weapon raid by an outside mob of masked goons, leaving a trail of shocking injuries, forced trespass and vandalised doors and windows. All accounts say that the university administration remained aloof throughout the disturbance whereas the police intervened way after the miscreants had made their escape.

Until this stage, the police would have passed as being indifferent or at worst derelict, or, as they claimed, circumspect, waiting for the Vice

Chancellor’s nod to enter the campus. But for their long and deliberate inaction at the gate, they would still have hoped to keep their face by resorting to the usual gimmicks of opening an inquiry and registering an FIR, which they eventually did.

However, the episode has only highlighted that the police professionalism will have to be assessed in a political context.

The alliance of baton wielders and power wielders is nothing new in Indian polity. Its new low was evident recently from the open support extended by the RSS-dominated UP establishment to the racist ‘go to Pakistan’ abuse hurled at innocent Muslim bystanders in their own backyard, by the Additional Superintendent of Police of Meerut, during the hotly debated anti-CAA stir. The guilty officer is yet to be officially censured, in spite of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the only Muslim cabinet minister in Modi’s government, giving a media call for immediate action.

It was nothing unusual. Any doubt in this regard has now been put to rest by the Delhi Police, which reports directly to Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

A question was tossed, to and from, between Amit Shah and his detractors during the ongoing CAA-NRC debate: why only the BJP-ruled states were witnessing violence? The continuation of this trend even in the National Capital would suggest that the answer lies as much in the kind of selective inaction witnessed at the JNU gate as in the reckless action of the law enforcers elsewhere.

Notwithstanding the Prime Minister finding virtue in his last Mann ki Baat episode of the year, in the country’s youth questioning the system, there have so far emerged no visible champions of this doctrine on the official horizon.

It is not a situation of complete despondency, though. There are enough reports to suggest that the police functionaries in several UP districts, encouraged by many seniors, have shown character in maintaining order while earning people’s trust and cooperation at the same time amidst the current phase of protest dharnas and rallies. Surely, policing heroes will emerge from dark shadows only, in due course.

In the meantime, the following recent episode of the police’s time-tested reliance on self-accountability, as reported in the American media, is worth pondering over.

A New York police officer who was sentenced last month in Tennessee for a racist tirade and break-in at the home of an African-American family has since resigned from the force. Calls for the firing of NYPD officer Michael Reynolds, who is white, have grown since he was sentenced to 15 days in jail and three years of probation on December 6 in the rampage at the Nashville home in 2018, with an online petition drawing more than 12,000 signatures.

The rampage was captured on a neighbour’s surveillance video. Halliburton reportedly testified that she was in bed when she heard someone break into her home around 2.30 in the morning in July of 2018, and immediately called 911. She said Reynolds, who was visiting Nashville and staying nearby with a group for a bachelor party, called her and her family, and threatened to “break every bone in the neck”, in a language laced with expletives.

Reynolds, 26, was informed that he was to report to the police headquarters for the commencement of an official disciplinary process on January 2, but he quit instead, Acting Deputy Commissioner for Public Information Devora Kaye said in a statement. “He will receive no pension or health benefits, nor will he be allowed to carry a firearm,” the statement said, “His actions are wholly inconsistent with the values and standards the New York City Police Department expects and demands of its officers.”

Tennessee criminal court judge Mark Fishburn called Reynolds’ actions ‘abhorrent’ and ‘repugnant’ at his sentencing, “The main thing is this is not to be swept under the rug. The kind of conduct that occurred that night just cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.”

Just to remind all stakeholders that the rule of law cannot survive in these trying times by default.

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