Column

The Pune police do not want the media to speak to those injured in Saturday’s bomb blasts in the “national interest”.

What exactly that means is open to interpretation but what it amounts to is one more way for the police to try and avoid scrutiny. Can the media be intrusive, difficult, insensitive and provocative?

Yes it is and it must be. A pliant, cooperative, subtle and gentle media is a contradiction in terms and why would one need it then? Often, it’s an ugly mirror that the media holds to society and society is all the better for it.

But it is hardly surprising that the police would be happier without media intrusions. It makes its own job of obfuscation and inefficiency that much easier without someone looking over its collective shoulder.

That India is a terror target or that terrorism is very much part of our lives is now taken for granted. The whys are complicated and complex. It is the how we deal with terrorism that gets examined each time and each time, it is policing which shows itself up as inadequate.

In some sense, we had no business being shocked by the SPS Rathore case and the amount he got away with using his own and political influence. It’s a story that is repeated everyday all over India, in varying degrees.

And Maharashtra has gone from having a police force which was seen as exemplary to a sad, sad story of political interference,
corruption and inefficiency.

In a sense, the rot took over during the post-Babri Masjid demolition phase and has since then it has suited those concerned to make sure that it is not contained. As journalists, we hear stories which cannot be printed for lack of concrete evidence — evidence of a sort that is difficult to come by.

They range from the amount of money paid to become police commissioner of a big city to promotions handed out for fudging evidence against politicians. There are police officials who hold allegiance to various politicians or to dubious outfits. Others work more for builders than the general public.

Many become so powerful that they cannot be castigated or even pulled up by their seniors. Strangely, it is not as if this does not enter the public domain, it is just that it is sometimes disguised and sometimes ignored. If the police commissioner of a major city accepts bullet-proof vests from builders, not enough eyebrows are raised.

When senior police officers are accused of grabbing land meant for housing constables and getting plush apartment blocks built for themselves, no one pays attention.

Most of the cases filed with the Anti Corruption Bureau in Mumbai are against builders involved in the slum rehab project. Action taken? Zilch. Is there not something to worry about here?

Middle class India gets very upset when a constable pockets Rs100 for some traffic violation instead of issuing a ticket. Corruption is endemic, we thunder. But we should know that the constable has to share that Rs100 all the way to the top.

Relatively speaking, senior police officials getting or giving crores of rupees ought to register higher on the outrage scale. For the last couple of years, Maharashtra’s seniormostpolice officers have been involved in an unseemly fight, including going to court, over who gets to be the director general.

Many brave police personnel died in the terror attacks of November 2008 and the files regarding faulty bullet proof vests have vanished — from police protection. The “honest” officer finds it tough to continue.

Questions will be raised about whether bandobust duty and the fracas over the release of a film prevented the police from interpreting whatever intelligence they got about Pune being a terrorist target. But we will get no answers as long as the force is burdened by its collusion with politicians and unsavoury elements.

Perhaps it is time for civil society to read between the lines. That might really be in the “national interest”.