Turf war between police forces

Our Constitution had envisaged a federal form of government where the Centre and the states would work in partnership and respect each other’s rights. These rights and responsibilities were clearly stated and demarcated between the Centre and the states.

Regular civility and understanding between state police forces are being abandoned for political gains.

Law and order was assigned to the states. They were to be responsible for keeping order on the streets, preventing crime and investigating and prosecuting those responsible for crimes committed within their borders. The CBI, which was first established as an anti-corruption wing of the Delhi Police, was metamorphosed into an agency to investigate serious crimes if any of the states requested for expert help. Over the years, it has been transformed into an instrument of political vendetta, though the courts still assign sensitive cases involving political figures to the CBI. All of us are aware that the Supreme Court called the CBI a ‘caged parrot’! That was a decade ago. Today, the parrot is not merely caged, its wings have been clipped. It hops around behind its keeper waiting to be fed!

The police forces were and are still led by IPS officers, recruited through the All India Civil Services competitive exams. Only those who stand first among their own compatriots from their parent state are assigned to their own state. The other vacancies (half the requirement) are filled by candidates from other parts of India. They are selected by the Union Department of Personnel. This mixing of state and non-state was to ensure that the federal principle prevailed. Since the IPS officers were trained together, they were sufficiently acquainted with each other to amicably decide inter-state cases in a civil and legal manner. This arrangement worked without rancour till very recently.

If a Sushant Singh Rajput had committed suicide in Mumbai and his distraught father in Bihar had accused the actor’s girl-friend of murder for cornering his wealth, the Bihar police would transfer his father’s complaint to the Mumbai police for inquiry into the allegations. Instead, in a distinct departure from normal police practice, an IPS officer from Bihar flew to Mumbai with his team of juniors to inquire into the complaint, knowing full well that Bihar’s police had no legal jurisdiction to delve into this case from another state.

A sensation was created, more for the Bihar audience and to create a possible flush of sympathy for the BJP which planned and plotted the entire spectacle! It also helped the Bihar police to approach the superior courts which were empowered to order the transfer of the case registered in Bihar to the CBI. And, as planned, the CBI asked for the Mumbai’s case to be clubbed with the Bihar one and that, too, happened.

But even the CBI’s crack investigators could not turn the suicide into a murder! Sushant had locked himself in his bedroom before hanging himself from the ceiling. It took more than three hours for a locksmith to break open the lock of the door before his corpse could be lowered and shifted to the morgue for a post-mortem examination.

Coming closer to the day when a Punjab police contingent from Mohali police station was waylaid by the Haryana police, it is to be noted that Punjab was now ruled by the AAP party of Kejriwal. The AAP was in power in Delhi for two terms but had no control over the police as Delhi was a Union Territory. The Delhi police reported to the Lt Governor and through him to the Union Home Ministry.

The Punjab police seem to have barged into the home of Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, a BJP activist who had stormed the gates of Kejriwal’s official home in Delhi some months earlier and used disparaging language for the AAP leader. Kejriwal took offence but could do nothing till he won Punjab and now had the Punjab police to do his bidding. And he decided to copy the BJP’s subtle misuse of power to teach his detractors a lesson!

And so we got to see a comedy turned into a tragedy! The Delhi Police recorded a case of kidnapping (!) against the Punjab policemen and wired its counterpart in Haryana, a BJP-ruled state, to detain the Punjabis. This the Haryanvis did at a crossing at Kurukshetra. The Punjab team was released after a couple of hours after the statements of the men were recorded and senior IPS officers from Punjab arrived to rescue them.

If this is going to be the new normal, Centre-state relations will have to be redefined to include new rules on inter-state police disagreements. The Mizoram police had taken position, against the Assam police on a territorial dispute about a year ago. And the Assam police became bolder when its team flew down to Gujarat and picked up a Gujarati Dalit leader who had made snide comments against Narendra Modi in Gujarat. The sessions court had to come down heavily on the Assam police before Mewani was finally released.

The case of Disha Ravi, a young Bengaluru resident working for environmental causes deserves a separate chapter. But there, too, processes were not followed. More than processes, the regular civility and understanding between two state police forces were abandoned in the interest of the likely political gains that were anticipated.

We are headed for confusion and confusion will spell ultimate doom for all parties. The respect and bonhomie that sister police forces must nurture for each other will blow out in smoke. All that was inculcated in us at our training institutions at Mussoorie and Mt Abu (now Hyderabad) that India is One and we, too, are One will be irrelevant! This was the natural lesson we learnt from procedures that respected the authority of different states ruled by different political parties.

The BJP wants One India, a United India, also, but wants only one party to rule all the states along with the ‘double engine’ at the Centre.

One party rule has been very successful in neighbouring China, but in a boisterous democracy like India’s, regional parties dominate in several states. A Congress-mukt Bharat desired by the BJP is almost complete but AAP is making strides and the Trinamool in Bengal is not to be easily dislodged nor is the DMK in Tamil Nadu and the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. The BJP will have to adjust to this reality.

My guess is that the BJP will try even harder now!