The Great Indian Police Farce

Every Indian knows that the Indian Police is not the greatest in the world. We know the many reasons behind it and more often than not we justify its various short comings and always find something or someone to blame for it. Well the facts are simple, there is too much political pressure (from small thefts to major scandals), every case has some big hot-shot pulling the strings of power to make the cops to do whatever he/she wants. Another fact is that our cops aren't exactly the best paid in the world either. They usually come from the very low stratas of society with little and sometimes even no education (considering only the ones below the rank of Inspector here). They pay scale is ridiculous and dangerous too. To lead a rather comfy life they usually look at other avenues for money and therefore they are more than ready to do the bidding of a person who can throw even a few hundred Rupees at them. So, there is no class, a lot of corruption and very low meaning of the term 'moral fiber'. Last but not the least, for about 99.999% of the Policemen, its 'just a job'. Nothing more than a way to provide sustenance for the family. And like all other government offices and jobs, they know that once in, there is a very little chance of being thrown out (barring ofcourse a big high profile scandal erupts with them at the center), so why work. Most of them have no problems with collecting their pay without moving their fat butts of out those rickety wooden chairs for days together. So why would a person want to go out and actually investigate anything when his job and pay is not dependent on it. Even though this is true, its not the absolute case. Ours is a functioning democracy, flawed but functional and for every idiot there is a wise person too. And it is these wise (or rather normal) people that keep the wheels of the force moving. Now what prompted me to write about the Police is an incident that happened not too long ago.

It was a day like any other when at about 3:30 in the afternoon I got a call from my little brother. "I think the 800 has been stolen", he said. "WHAT!?!?! Are you sure? How do you know?", I semi-yelled back. "It's not where I parked it. Its gone. Khali hai! (Its empty!) Just road!".

I told him to quickly rush to the nearest Police station and lodge and FIR (First Information Report). Its the first step in any case. Once lodged, its becomes a job for the police to carry out. They are obligated to investigate every lodged FIR and refusing to lodge an FIR is not an option. Ideally anyway. But in our great country, the first thing that comes to a cop's mind is how not to lodge an FIR. Anyway, as my brother and a few of his friends went from his college to the nearest Police station, I and my parents (shopping gleefully at the time) set out for the place too. My brother went and told the cops everything. They asked him to write everything down on a white piece of paper in both Hindi and English. My brother wrote down the sequence of events which culminated in him finding out that our beloved car was gone. The cops then dispatched an Inspector or Sub-Inspector to the crime scene with a friend of my brother. After we gave them the chassis number and the engine number, the cops radioed for our stolen car on their network. "Good good, that would help. This is going really well", we thought. By the time me and my parents reached the station, my brother and his friends were outside and waiting. We asked him if the cops gave him a copy of the FIR as they are supposed to but he said that when he asked for it, the guy lodging 'em said that it wasn't time for that yet and that they would do their karewahi (investigation) and then give it to us. Shaken because of the loss but thankful for the help we were getting from the Police, we came back home.

After talking to a few people we came to know that we were supposed to get a signed, stamped, computer generated receipt of the FIR and only then it would be considered lodged and we would be able to get insurance. So we decided to go to the station the next morning for the FIR receipt. The first thing we were told in a disgusting threatening way, the next day, when we asked for our FIR copy was, "FIR mazak nahi hai!! (FIR is not a joke!!)".

"Er... wha..at?"

What started after that were the endless rounds of the police station when time and again we were told to come the next day and the next day and the day after that!! Till finally one day, a cop in a payjama and the khaki shirt declared to my brother and uncle that no such FIR was lodged in that station. He even dared my brother to look up the complaint papers and try to find his. A challenge my brother readily accepted and promptly fished out the paper from a huge stack of un-official FIRs. It was then that my uncle decided to complain to the SSP (Senior Superintendent of Police) about this station and the officers. After a two hour wait, the SSP was on the phone with the officers asking why the FIR wasn't being lodged. He had expressed surprise at the FIR not being lodged and had said proudly, "It's the first time this has happened!".

Whaaa....at !??!! Really ?!?! And... Nithari is where ?!?!!?

(Nithari village, the location of those brutal rapes and mass killings that spanned a couple of years and came to light a few months ago, is not too far from this particular station. Then too the cops had refused to lodge missing person FIRs of the villagers as their children went missing over the years.)

"It's a fake case Sir", the cops from the station told the SSP, "the kids have lost the car and now have come to us to lodge an FIR because they are scared of their parents". My uncle started laughing and that hurt the SSP's ego. "Please don't laugh at the police!! Please don't laugh at the police!!", he growled, clearly unhappy with us, civilains, laughing at his people and him. He directed his people to lodge an FIR and expunge it later 'if they thought it was fake'.

Now will someone please tell me... how the FUCK does anyone LOSE a car ?!?! Either there is an accident or there is theft. I've NEVER... EVER... heard of anyone losing a car.... nor read about it... or even imagined it in my head... but here they were... our khaki protectors solving my car's case with such forceful reasoning !!

My uncle and brother left the SSP's office dejected. This fellow too was more interested in 'us laughing at the dumb police reasoning' than be horrified with the lax attitude of his staff. He too was one of them.

The next morning we finally got the FIR copy. The first step was over after FIVE full days. Something that usually takes half and hour took FIVE days. The investigation would start now.

Really?!?!

In the course of those five days, we were so harassed and troubled (our policemen aren't even the polite-est in the world) that actually finding the car and getting it back didn't even cross our minds. We lost almost all hope. Its been almost two weeks and I don't think I'll ever hear from the cops about my car. It was the smallest, weakest and oldest (at three years) of our bunch but it was also the one which got us thru the most. There was always that unique pleasure, a feel of driving that 800, which is gone now.

My friends told me about how this person's car was found the next day after being stolen but he didn't get to know of it for months because the cops who found it never bothered to inform anyone. In another case, an 800 was found again, 20 years after being stolen and the culprit was the driver, who by the way was still employed by the family!!

Anyhow... this whole incident made me think a lot about the police force and what can be done to improve it. Though I'm not in a position now to implement anything but some day I'd like to make difference here too. Some of the things I've thought about are:

1. The constabulary should be abolished.
2. Well educated individuals with skills should start off from Inspector/Officer position.
3. Pay should be increased and should be made relevant to to today's standards.
4. Training should be improved and upgraded.
5. The force should not be under the command of our criminal politicians so completely. (Recent case in point- The Sohrabuddin fake encounter episode on every news channel nowadays)
6. Good work should be rewarded accordingly to stop our cops from looking at other avenues for progress.

The day our police force stops taking it as just a job but rather takes the fair enforement of law seriously, the day that the pursuit of justice would be the reason that they would come to work and not just pay, the day that the cops would start setting an example by following the rules and not being the first to break them (as it is now) would be the day that they would actually earn our respect and trust and the right to wear that khaki and police our society. Right now donning the famed Khaki gives many of them a huge ego kick. They start believing they are the law rather than those who enforce it. And now I wait for the day when that would no longer be true and hope once again that I am able to do something in my life to change this silly pathetic situation.