Email
Print
ShareFormer commissioner of police Ram Deo Tyagi is a relieved man, but is disappointed that he has spent most of his retirementtrying to clear the blot on his name -- of ordering to open fire on the Suleman Bakery workers
Do you feel relieved that the High Court has finally let you off?
I am happy that the court's decision has upheld the truth. Earlier, the sessions court too had given a similar judgement and the government was given a period of 90 days to go in for an appeal. The fact that the government did not find any fault in the judgement was reflected in the government's decision to not contest the court's verdict. However, there is a provision in Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) that allows a private person to file an appeal and that is exactly what happened in my case. It was a torture to go through the six years of constant change of benches and judges.
Why was it a torture?
It was sheer mental torture to go to court every week, hire an advocate and pay their high fees. Instead of enjoying my retirement, I had to fight for justice and run around trying to prove I had only performed my duty. I had to live to get a clean chit from the court and now I wait to die.
Was it an error of judgement on your part?
It has been too many years since this incident. There was no case at all in the first place. I was out on the streets and it was curfew time across the city and riots were on in different pockets. I received a call from the control room that there has been an incident of firing from the roof top of Suleman Bakery. I went with my team and the Special Operations Squad (SOS), which was like a state-level NSG force at that time. I went to the spot and made inquiries and asked if the people had heard any gun shots. I was told that there was some firing going on inside the bakery and they had heard one from the roof too. I ordered the team to fire tear gas shells and shouted on the microphone asking them to drop their weapons and come out. I did my job. I did not go inside, because according to the law, those who had weapons and were shooting were terrorists, I was not trained to deal with them. The SOS was brought in to handle such situations. I waited outside and asked them to go inside and arrest the men. The rest is history.
Do you think the arrest of a policeman dampened the morale of the Mumbai police?
After I was prosecuted in 2001, I was arrested and put in a hospital. If you have seen thereafter, in any riots, whether it was in Gujarat, Bhiwandi, Thane or even the 26/11 terror attack, those on the ground were only constables or lower rank police. Now, all DG, IG or CP rank officers sit in control rooms or move around in their vehicles.
