Without autonomy, fingers of doubt will continue to be raised on the functioning of the police

The working style of the police is still going on like the British rule. The police cannot move even a leaf without the instructions of the government. The police is not only helpless in matters of research, but also in law and order, it keeps staring at the faces of the state governments. Along with the acquittal of the accused of terrorist and other major crimes, the police have been in the dock for failing to handle the deteriorating law and order on Ram Navami in many states. The communal riots on Ram Navami in West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand exposed the law and order of the police and state governments. The police and state intelligence agencies not only failed to detect the riots in advance but also failed to prevent the riots from spreading. The riots spread from city to city in West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar. In the matter of handling law and order, the Yogi government of Uttar Pradesh took immediate initiative. On this festival, the miscreants tried to create riots in Lucknow, but the police strictly failed them.

The police, which have become puppets in the hands of governments in matters of law and order, have failed to carry out investigations in serious cases. On March 29, the Rajasthan High Court acquitted all the four accused in the May 2008 serial blasts case in the capital Jaipur. The court found the evidence presented by the investigating agency to be wrong. In the year 2019, all the four accused were sentenced to death. After heavy police crackdown, the state government is engaged in the exercise of filing a petition in the Supreme Court in this matter. Another major case of police failure came to the fore in Bhadohi, Uttar Pradesh. A court in Bhadohi district has acquitted 36 people, including 34 policemen, in a 25-year-old case of encounter of 4 people. Another example of how the police’s hands are tied is the case of Khalistan supporter and Waris-e-Punjab chief Amritpal. The governments of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh avoided arresting Amritpal.

Not only the police, in many cases the Central Investigation Agency like the CBI and the NIA have also made themselves infamous by shoddy investigation of cases of sensitive crimes. All the accused, including Swami Aseemanand, were acquitted in the powerful pipe bomb blast in Hyderabad’s famous Mecca Masjid 11 years ago. Nine people were killed in the blast in this famous place of worship. In this case, 54 CBI witnesses turned hostile. The CBI was troubled a lot on this. A Gujarat court acquitted all 39 people accused of gang rape and murder of over 12 members of the minority community in separate incidents in Kalol during the 2002 communal riots for lack of evidence. Similarly, a court in Surat acquitted 122 people facing charges of being members of the banned organization Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) for attending a meeting held in Surat in December 2001.

These are some of the big examples which highlight the deteriorating condition of the country’s police system. Apart from this, the number of such small cases is in thousands, in which the accused have been released due to lack of honest investigation by the police. Police time and government money is wasted every year due to lax investigation of crimes. Governments are not worried about this. Police is also not much interested in punishing the criminals in such criminal cases, in which there is no earning. This is the reason why the police avoid taking such research seriously. The top officers of the police and the state government are equally responsible for the deteriorating image of the police. The CBI investigation has been troubling the state governments for covering up the failure of the police and for getting the police to work as per their wish. This is the reason why the state governments of the opposition parties have been opposing the CBI inquiry. Not only this, the government of the opposition parties of 9 states including West Bengal and Rajasthan have even passed a resolution not to conduct the investigation by the CBI.

The question is also that who will compensate for the loss caused to their future and family by the accused who have spent years in jail after being acquitted by the court. The government does not give any kind of compensation for destroying their future. The intention of the governments to take action against the policemen who have failed to collect solid evidence against the accused is also not visible. Governments have learned a lesson from the cases of the accused acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence. Such mistakes should not be repeated again, there is no visible intention of the leaders and governments to make sure arrangements for this. It is not that there is a dearth of qualified policemen in the police department, but when the leaders do not work as per their wish, they are not given the opportunity to show their ability. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the police and other investigative agencies have remained puppets in the hands of the governments. All the emphasis of the government and political parties is on getting their vested interests fulfilled by the police. The ruling parties have been using the police to serve their political interests. Policemen also move back and forth among politicians for creamy postings. Capable and honest officers are sidelined from important postings. Till the police does not get complete autonomy in the country, fingers will be raised on its credibility.

– Yogendra Yogi