Can you ever imagine criminals and murderers bringing a drunken cop to police station? According to a news report, this happened in U.P. Two under trials lodged in Moradabad district jail facing charges of robbery and murder were brought to Bijnore for court hearing but found the court to be closed on account of Krishna Janmashthami festival. To enjoy the festival, the cops escorting the criminals decided to have booze. They asked the criminals to wait at a bus stand and went inside the liquor shop. Later finding the cops too drunk, the under trials escorted the cops to the nearest police station instead of running away! This is a strange case of bad boys turning good Samaritans while the cops showing how much irresponsible and careless they can be in discharging their duties. Is it not puzzling as to why these criminals were taken to court on a holiday and how the cops left them at the bus stand without any escort?
In an another incident, this too in U.P., a young IPS officer, additional Superintendent of Police in charge of traffic was assaulted and dragged in a car for almost a kilometer while chasing three police constables fleeing in a car. These police constables were caught red handed by her demanding bribes from lorry drivers on a roads intersection. Even though both the incidents happened in U.P., the modus operandi of the police are same every where from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.
Recently the Karnataka police has released a report by the Public affairs committee of Bangalore according to which ‘38% of policemen believe that corruptions part of the system and that honesty does not pay all the time. 64% police agreed that greed is the root cause of corruption’. This may be true to some extent because of the general perception that the ‘moolah’ so collected from the lower rank constable is shared up to the top level. But does it not mean that corruption is not on account of low salary or living condition but because of greed? Never the less, both the above cases bring the police force in a bad light. If there is one up right police like the one lady S. P., there are three others who are all ready to pull them down.
It is very rare that a positive story about police activity is ever flashed by the media. Even our films shown them in a bad light acting like a ‘buffoon’ or hand in glove with the criminals and smugglers (films like ‘Ardh Satya’ or ‘A Wednesday’ are exceptions). It is heartening to note that a NGO ‘Janaagraha’ from Bangalore has launched a website “I Paid a Bribe” to sensitize the public. www.ipaidabribe.com is a Janaagraha’s unique initiative to tackle corruption by harnessing the collective energy of citizens. It can be hoped that this site will bring out more such cases of corruption in all fields of life and the ‘non corrupt’ higher officials take note of such cases to punish the guilty, corrupt and irresponsible people in their respective departments for a better and cleaner image in the society.
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