He could have been right in his ‘sense’ when he said it was
not feasible to check every bus in Delhi
but he probably didn’t do his homework. The bus was chartered with a school,
was plying on a school holiday, had circled the same area twice and the accused
had attacked others before picking up the young couple. Also, the police had
ignored the complainants about these ‘other attacks’. Also, it was just the 8-10
PM time-slot when it all happened.
When these lapses were the major reasons behind the brutal
attack and gangrape, Mr. Kumar should have accepted the shortcomings with grace
cracking down on the errant and careless cops. But, he, instead, chose to play
insensitive, like the character of the Indian police has become. Action on
errant cops after a week of the incident only bolstered the claim that the
police was acting indifferent and the sacking was result of the mounting public
protest.
And yesterday, he, in his profound wisdom, came up with yet
another remark that can comfortably put him in the league of people with
dictatorially insensitive mindset.
He equated injured protesters by his Force’s barbaric act as
collateral damage. (Mr. Shinde, do you see in him the next home minister
of the country?) His statement came midst increasing protests and increasingly
barbaric police acts to suppress the voices.
The CNN-IBN report said him quoting: ('If sacking the police
commissioner improves safety for women, do it every day – December 24, 2012)
“Pointing that "in a crackdown, there is always
collateral damage", Neeraj Kumar hit out at the media, accusing it of
fuelling the violence on Sunday, adding that the police had "not
mishandled the situation". If an innocent person has come to harm, I
apologise. I feel sorry for that. But I do not apologise for what the police
did there, he further said.”*
Mr. Kumar, you are an IPS officer and I might be wrong in
writing here owing to my poor knowledge of affairs, but it again puts your
whole persona in negative light. No one is going for your intent here. That
cannot be the case in the highly charged atmosphere of protests. What matters
first is how sensitive you sound. And you have sounded totally insensitive in
managing this affair. What sort of sincere effort can we expect from you and
your police force in the long run then?
This
unrest and the public outcry is a direct result of insensitivity of the police administration
and the political machinery. The protests were ignored first. No one of the
governing machinery took it seriously thinking it would die down. When it grew,
they were not prepared. And since, they have been a most insensitive, elitist
lot, they, in their arrogance, chose to crush it down, not learning any lessons
from the self-erupted massive public protests of 2011.
‘Humans as collateral damage’ has been mostly used in
the context of wars and civil wars and terrorism, and certainly there wasn’t
any remote possibility of that happening during the Delhi protests. It is not just the lumpen and
mob elements that are to be blamed for the violence that injured many and took
life of one Delhi Police constable, but, you, your police force and your
political bosses, too, are equally responsible.
Also, please,
stop making death of the police constable an issue to settle scores with the
Delhi government and Sheila Dikshit.
Mr. Commissioner of Police, your concept of ‘humans as
collateral damage’ is misplaced and against the spirit of democracy. And
people like you and your political bosses are given charge to ensure that it
doesn’t happen.
Indian democracy is still half-baked; it still has many mob
traits. But that doesn’t allow anyone to treat the Indian public (and the
voters) as collateral damage. On
the contrary, it is true that the political
bosses and the administrative machinery have been doing that regularly.
The wrong notion might well be on the way of the forced-correction
mode, growing public protests on issues of public concern is a testimony to it.
Mr. Kumar, you, your police force, and your political bosses
- do you realize that?
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
