What is Expected of Them?
A very interesting and pertinent question has been raised by Mr. Dahiya. Rajendra Ji has given some good observations. While I agree with both the views, let us analyze as to what is expected of them?
1. Vigilance: The police needs to be vigilant to ensure that the criminals are not sneeking into the society to do what they do. But as Rajindra ji has pointed out, the police taking bribe from transporters, and shopkeepers, then are they being vigilant? the answer is "NO". Thus while they might not be involved in the incident directly, they definitely would have contributed to it, and thus can't escape the blame.
2. Trained: One thing a man tries to avoid is training, be it military, police or even sports. I had seen in my career that some people preferred to do the petty jobs of cleaning battalion area, rather than the training, for that is easier thing to do. And how much effort the police departments lays down to continueous training their force to keep up with the latest developments in the crime world. If they are not training they are contributing to it.
3. Maintaining the Weapon Systems. I happen to visit one of the Police station at Ghaziabad, some time in 1981 as my nephew had just been commissioned to be police sub inspector and had joined the force. They had old .303 rifles. I saw couple of them, the barrel was so dirty that if used the bullet probably would not have left the barrel. When I questioned them about such a state of their weapons, they said these are very old, and criminals have much better weapons then them. What they did not realize is that, it is this weapon that is available to them, and keeping them functional is the only way they could meet the challange better, rather than not having even this weapon.
3. Equipping the force: coupled with the point at 2, is the responsibility of the police department of equipping their cadre with the suitable weapons and equipments to meet the challange. They always would say that money is not there. But, what ever little they have for this purpose, has it been used effectively? If the answer is "NO" (which it is) then they should share the blame.
4. Ethical Issues: Bribe and corruption is well known and less we discuss, better we would be. Most sub inspectors have palacial houses in best localities in the cities. Considering the income they get from their salaries, it would not be possible to achieve that. If the money is coming under the table, then security would have to be compromised. The police is well served by the politicians to do that as more often than not, they are the one, who ask them to do such things.
5. The list is endless.
Thus if media blames the police, then they are not awafully wrong in it. The irony is that media itself is also contributory to the many such things. Every single thing seems to have become business rather than service, where money is the bottom line. When we are in such a society, breeding characters like "Harishchandra" may be extremely difficult. However, while it may be difficult, we can always try and beginning can always be made.
