SPEAKING
FREELY A
notice warranting reform in
India By Siddharth Srivastava
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
NEW DELHI -
Everybody knows Indian cops are corrupt. I am
usually conscientious, but I have made mistakes,
like talking on the cell phone while driving or
jumping a red light when I think I can get away.
I have been caught a few times. Usually
the traffic constable offers two options - pay a
portion of the actual fine as bribe or
confiscation of my driving license and car
registration papers, which one then needs to
procure from the local court.
This
process, as everybody knows, is like slow-death
given the
tardy workings of our
administration and judiciary. So, there is some
negotiation and an amount agreed. I recall one
incident when a policeman happy with his earning,
stopped all other traffic to let my car pass
through.
I felt like prime minister of
India for a few seconds.
However, I
recently had first-hand experience of another
money spinner, for the cops, that is. It is called
the non-bailable warrant or the NBW. The police
landed up at my house with a NBW against a close
relative. I live in Gurgaon, a suburb of the
national capital, Delhi.
Serving a NBW is
not straight forward. It is an operation. The cops
want to make sure that the person being served the
NBW does not escape. So, when the bell rang an old
man with a bag pretended he was the courier guy.
He asked for my identity and whether the relative
was home. When I replied in the affirmative, there
was some coded signal to others. Instantly, many
burly and aggressive personnel who could easily
pass off as bouncers in pubs, jumped from various
hiding places, behind a car, a bush, a tree.
I was quickly surrounded and so was the
house. I felt as if I was Osama bin Laden in
hiding. With security chaps so caught up in NBWs,
it is no wonder that the regular thieves and
robbers roam around so freely. I think if I had
made a wrong move they would have thought nothing
of physically assault. It's common. The relative
was summoned.
One cop shoved into my
relative's hands a piece of paper with an almost
illegible font: "we have a NBW against you. You
have to come to a police station right away. You
are under arrest,'' he said, with a look of
absolute glee on his face, as if he had busted a
Lashkar-e-Toiba hideout. The same chap would not
have lifted a finger for jobs that he should be
doing with the same zeal.
Sometime back,
there was a burglary in the neighborhood. The
victims had called the cops a million times.
Nobody came. There is a reason for this. Often the
policemen are in cahoots with the robbers. A
friend recently lost a laptop. As he had some
connections with the higher authorities the local
cops had to cooperate.
They took him to a
godown nearby where the kingpin of the computer
flogging mafia sipped tea over some backslapping
with the policemen present. He apologized to my
friend who was taken to a corner where dozens of
stolen laptops were strewn about. My friend was
told to choose any one except a Vaio reserved for
the police station head. "Unfortunately your
laptop has already been sold to a customer,'' my
friend was told. He refused to take any and bore
the loss.
Going back to the NBW story, the
serving of the court order had been timed well. It
was late evening when the courts are closed. Any
appeal for bail could be made only the next
morning. In the meantime, one is required to spend
the night at the local police station, which is
not a palatable proposition. Of course the rules
can become very flexible if the cops are taken
care of.
I have seen lock ups in Indian
police stations (from outside) - they are dingy,
hot, mosquito-infested rooms usually filled with
other local thieves and criminals. I did some
cross checks. There are innumerable instances of
citizens being harassed by cops by NBW's. They can
relate to car accidents, bounced checks,
non-payment of electricity bills, power theft or
environmental infringements.
Everybody is
answerable to the law and should be. However, the
problem happens due to the prolonged duration and
multiple hearings before the cases are resolved.
People get transferred, seek new jobs or can be on
holiday.
A missed hearing could mean that
a NBW is on its way. In the meantime, all the
authorities, from cops to lawyers to petty court
officials, seek to make money on the side. The
issue of NBWs has become such an-illegal money
making racket that the apex Supreme Court has said
that there should be restraint in issuing such
orders.
The harassed citizen has no choice
but to make a bribe in order to escape the
ignominy and discomfort of spending time at a
lousy police station. The system does not seek to
protect the law. It thrives on forcing regular
citizens to break it. This is the sad reality.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their
say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
Siddharth
Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist. He
can be reached at sidsri@yahoo.com
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