Comment

So the Manish Khatau case has fallen through. But is anyone really surprised? Given the police track record, everyone knows that the more high-profile the case, the less chances of police charges sticking in a court of law.

To recap, the Khatau case seemed like an open and shut case. The 21-year-old son of an industrialist driving fast from a late night party, goes into a police barricade and seriously injures one of the constables on duty.A simple matter of rash driving while (possibly?) under the influence, you would think. But for reasons best known to them, the police went beyond this charge, where the injury to a by-stander becomes an involuntary act, and slapped onthe far more serious charge of deliberately causing hurt to a government servant on duty and even attempt to murder! Predictably, it is the minorcharge which is now being pursued.

Much the same thing happened in the case of the Provogue Lounge Bar owner, Salil Chaturvedi. The police allegedly found three grams of cocaine in the bathroom of his house which they had raided. The police then went a step — or several steps — further and drew up a charge sheet which claimed that Chaturvedi was part of an international gang of drug dealers. Yet when the case came up for trial, the only evidence was that three-gram vial. The judge said, no connection with an international gang, or for that matter an Indian one,was established. Not just that; he found no evidence that drugs were available at the Provogue Lounge.

There are other, in fact, many other cases of a similar nature. Remember the Afroze case where the young man was charged with sedition? To an outsider, he seemed to be a braggart, who was foolish enough not to understand what he was getting into. To the police he was part of an international Al-Qaeda plot. To prove it, police teams travelled to the USA and Australia, all the effort and expense ending in a damp squib. Remember Bharat Shah the diamond king and film financier, accused of underworld links? Or Tarannum,amere bar dancer accused of being part of an international terrorist organisation?The only charge that stuck was that she gambled on cricket matches and helped clients in placing their bets.

These are not isolated cases, but just some examples of a well-worn pattern. I am willing to bet that the Rahul Mahajan case will also fall through, or that at best, the police will be able to show thatPramod Mahajan’s son was an occasional drug user, which of course is different from being an addict, and vastly different from being a drug dealer.
Why do the police do this time and time again? The first time is a mistake, the second time, a learning experience, the third time a habit.And it’s a habit the police force is unable to break. This, sadly, is true of the police all over the country. If you study the pattern, you conclude that this proves either police incompetence or it proves police corruption. Neither option to put it mildly, is flattering.

We stoppedbeing surprised at police corruption a long time ago, and we began to doubt the forces’ competence too a while back. Yet, what no one talks about is that the service is under-funded, ill-equipped and under-trained.

Everyone speaks about Mumbai’s revenues not being returned to the city to improve its infra-structure, yet no one says that at least some of those revenues should go into improving the police force. The Maharashtra Home Department has actually seen a decline in its budgetary allocation from 6.82 per cent of the total state budget in 1999 to 2000 to 4.96 per cent in 2004 to 2005.

This means that most of the budget for police is spent on wages leaving very little for anything else. Look at these figures: Rs 14 crore for training and Rs 13 crore for computerisation per year for the entire police force of Maharashtra! And the money available for Police Welfare is down to a mere Rs 138 per head per year, which is why, only half the police force has housing. In fact, the situation is so bad that the state home minister, the redoubtable RR Patil, had to plead with industrial houses to donate uniforms and raincoats for the police. And if you look at police barriers in the city, you will find that most of them bear a sponsors name!

The police has always been important because it maintains law and order but also because it’s the very public face of the state administration. Now in the age we live in, the need for a well-equipped, well-trained and highly efficient force is obviously even greater. Is this the way we are going about it?