The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Thursday, August 30, 2001, Chandigarh, India

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Complaint filed against Tehelka

New Delhi, August 29
Shakti Vahini, a women’s organisation, has filed a complaint against the Managing Director of tehelka.Com, Tarun Tejpal, and his team of reporters, charging them with criminal conspiracy, cheating, impersonation and sedition by using call girls in the portal’s sting operation on defence deals earlier this year.

In a complaint addressed to the Commissioner of Police, the programme officer of Shakti Vahini, Ms Nishi Shrivastava, demanded that the matter be investigated and action initiated against persons found to have committed offences under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act and the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act.

The complaint filed jointly with Col K.S. Bhimwal (retd.) named Tejpal, Anirudha Bahal, Samuel Mathew and others.

The complaint said the articles and reports in newspapers said while purportedly investigating corruption in the Defence Ministry, the government and the Army, the persons in charge and associated with the portal provided women to certain officials of the Army. UNI

No ‘real act’ took place: Tejpal

New Delhi, August 29
Editor-in-Chief of tehelka.com Tarun Tejpal has said that though the news portal had used sex workers in its sting operations, it did not involve any “real act in the Clintonian sense.”

“No real act took place in the Clintonian sense. There is a lot of horseplay,” Tejpal said participating in the “Line of Fire” to be telecast by SAB TV on September 1.

He was responding to a question on whether it was proper to have secretly filmed the sexual acts of Army officers, who were supplied with sex workers by his news portal.

Tejpal, however, admitted that the use of sex workers in its sting operation was an “ethical transgression” and asserted that the website would never again “use anything like that.”

“It (the use of sex workers) was an ethical transgression, an error, but we should not lose the big story in the process,” he said.

He said one of the sex workers was aware of “what we were doing” but the other was not.

“That is a true mistake. That was a collateral damage,” Tejpal said. PTI

DISTURBING TRENDS-III
Alarming rise in attacks on cops
Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 29
Of the 73 policemen injured in 63 assault cases in the first eight months of the current year so far, an Assistant Sub-Inspector lost his life as the incidence of attacks on men in uniform has witnessed an alarming 500 per cent increase compared to the figures of the corresponding period last year.

From January 1 till August 24 this year, 63 cases of assault on policemen have been reported from all over the state against 13 cases reported during the same period last year.

Interestingly, between September 1 and December 31 last year, 25 cases of attack on policemen were reported from various parts of the state, meaning thereby that between September 1 last year and August 24 this year, 88 cases of assault on policemen have taken place in the state, which by any standard is an alarmingly high rate.

Constables (21) have taken the maximum beating followed by Head Constables and Assistant Sub-Inspectors (17 each). The remaining victims of this violent public outcry against policemen are Sub-Inspectors, Inspectors and a few Deputy Superintendents. One DSP was injured when lawyers held a protest at the Sangrur District Courts complex while another DSP was injured at Khanpur where agitated villagers blocked the State Highway No 18 near Kharar.

Another disturbing aspect of these increased incidence of violence against policemen has been that in a couple of cases, even money and in one case even the service revolver of the official was take away by the alleged attackers.

In a couple of cases, the investigating policemen were not only manhandled but were locked up in the houses of their alleged assailants.

The attacks on policemen are widespread. For example, while Jalandhar Range heads the list with 17 cases so far, Patiala and Ludhiana Ranges come next with 14 cases each while Border and Ferozepore recorded seven cases each. Faridkot Range is at the bottom of the list with three cases.

Investigations reveal that traffic violators were the main culprits as 22 of these cases were following traffic checking and in 20 cases, policemen on static duty were attacked. In 12 cases, the police parties were attacked when they went for investigation to the premises of the alleged assailants. Interestingly, only in three cases raids on illicit distilleries, policemen were manhandled.

While the Director-General of Police, Mr Sarabjit Singh, believes that men behind the attack on policemen “were mainly outlaws, including those engaged in illicit distillation, drugs, gambling and even in illicit arms and ammunition trade whose only purpose is to demoralise the force,” others blame both the human rights organisations, poor governance and increasing lawlessness for aggravation of attacks on public servants in general and police in particular.

A number of senior police officials, on the condition of anonymity, maintain that too much of interference and intervention of human rights organisations were not only responsible for attacks on policemen but also leading to a dangerous trend of demoralisation among men in uniform. The ultimate sufferer, they say, is the common man.

The cases reported during the current year also include the Khanpur (near Kharar) case as well as attack on a PUDA party which had gone to Dhobian di Basti for an anti-encroachment drive.

In Ludhiana, an Assistant Sub-Inspector of Traffic Police was murdered and his service revolver was taken away by the alleged assailants. Some money was also snatched from the deceased ASI.

In some of the cases, the uniform was torn and policemen were physically assaulted and even threatened with liquidation.

To be concluded