Delhi Police upload 'antique' FIRs on website, evoke nostalgia

New Delhi, July 16

Constables Pyare Lal and Sada Ali were on routine patrolling when they saw a cart-puller transporting bales of cotton. However, the cart-puller appeared to be pulling too hard to move the cart forward. That aroused suspicion in the minds of the two constables.

The cart puller was immediately stopped and it was discovered that he was stealing three sacks of wheat disguising those as bales of cotton. This was an FIR filed by the Delhi Police in 1947.

This FIR now is featuring on the list of the earliest crimes that had been reported then in Delhi. The archives had been uploaded on the city police’s website last month.

Around 29 “antique” FIRs, which show petty thefts of oranges, bedsheets and ice cream, were lodged between 1861 to the early 1900s at the city’s five main police stations Sabzi Mandi, Mehrauli, Kotwali, Sadar Bazar and Nangloi.

These FIRs had been filed in the Urdu Shikastah script which also used words of Arabic and Persian. These FIRs have been translated and compiled by a team led by Assistant Commissioner of Delhi Police Rajendra Singh Kalal.

In another FIR filed at Sabzi Mandi police station in 1876, three people, who had pleaded to stay for the night at a fellow villager house, stole three cots. The trio was booked under Section 380 (theft) and a judge had then sentenced them to three months of rigorous imprisonment.

Mohan, a resident of Bagh Shalimar, filed a complaint in October 1899 at Nangloi police station that two banana bunches were stolen from his farm. This case was filed under Section 379 (theft) and judge sentenced the accused to give an ‘anna’ (equal to 1/16th of a rupee) to the complainant.

Rajendra Singh Kalal, the translator, told The Tribune that these FIRs show how life and crimes earlier were very simple. “Unlike today’s long FIRs, earlier these were written in a just one paragraph. Earlier, there were only petty crimes and those may never feature in today’s crime records,” said Kalal who is also a cartoonist. He said that that he had added illustrations to these “antique” FIRs to make those more eye catchy.