Patricia Mukhim
Let me begin this article with a quote from the Indian Police Foundation, sent to me by former DGP Meghalaya, Mr N Ramchandran, who now leads the IPF. Ironically it came just as I was writing an article which I captioned, “Police: A Force or a Service.” This quote says, “One of the first steps in police reform is to build mutual trust between citizens and the police. They should develop confidence in each other as partners in building security, peace and order. Indian Police Foundation has been engaging in a nationwide campaign for police reforms. As part of this campaign for citizens’ support, we call upon every Indian to take a selfie with a policewoman or a policeman in uniform and post it on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram page of the Indian Police Foundation. You may also post it on LocalCircles @ SurakshitBharat page. Selfies can be with your neighbourhood beat constable or any other policewoman or policeman, including those of State and Central Police Organizations, Fire Forces etc.”
The question I pose as a citizen is, which policeman/woman do I take a selfie with? Can I find a friendly neighbourhood policeman/woman? Other than the East Khasi Hills SP and City SP, who are always on their best behaviour, I don’t think there are too many people who would want to pose for a picture, especially with OC of a police station. I would rather take a selfie with a well-mannered traffic policeman. From our collective experiences we can deduce that the police whose prime duty is maintain law and order in the locality are not trained in public relations. And I shall narrate later on in this article the reason for saying so.
As a founding member of the IPF, our brief is to think of the welfare of policemen and women and free them from the grip of politicians by suggesting incremental reforms since radical shifts are almost impossible. But I am sure that 99% of policemen in our state have not even heard of the IPF.
At a seminar on, ‘Breaking the silence on rape,” organised at St Edmunds College in July this year, SP (City), Vivek Syiem made one earth-shaking statement. He said the police is not a force; it is a service. This one statement changes the whole format of policing. However, this statement must be backed by action. The rank and file in the police hierarchy require orientation to reformat their role. In fact, we are seventy years late in bringing about a transition from the ruler’s police to the people’s police. While the top rung police officials don’t lack in basic courtesies, those down the line are what evoke expletives from even benign citizens.
The fact that police can be bribed to not book a law breaker or that they are almost reluctant to register an FIR when complainants come to the police station should tell us that there is something rotten in the system. And the irony is that even if you are a law abiding citizen you feel like a law breaker the moment you step into a police station. First, the Station House Officer or the Officer-in-Charge looks you up and down as if you would not be there unless you had a brush with the law and have come to lodge a false FIR. Second, if he accepts your FIR and reads through it he will find several loopholes as to why he cannot register that complaint.
Now there are as many kinds of policemen/women as there are police stations. While some have an instinctive understanding of their profession, others believe they occupy a position of power and authority and the uniform vests them with the power to flex their muscles. If that attitude of authority, strictness and effectiveness is demonstrated while solving a crime, maintaining law and order in their respective jurisdictions and, above all, in preventing crime by building a swish network for intelligence gathering, we would have seen the crime graph go down. Alas! That is far from happening going by recent statistics.
As for building a network of informants amongst citizens, police cannot do so by throwing their (heavy) weights around. Perhaps there are grave lacunae in the police training module which turns even an ordinary person into a brute once the uniform is on. Police can hardly speak politely; they believe that raising their voices would achieve better results. Amongst all the professionals, police are least trained in soft skills. Many a time we have heard of police heads propose the need for better police-public relations to build that network for information sharing. Police-public relation committees comprising members of the locality within the jurisdiction of the police station, a few policemen and the heads of the locality are formed and then forgotten. The Committees formed just to tick the boxes. I have not heard of a single performing Police-Public Relations Committee. Hence solving crime will continue to be a problem.
Let me now come to the point. On September 19, 2016 I lost my mobile phone and went to the Rynjah Police Station to file an FIR. The OC took a look at the FIR and told me I needed to go to the BSNL office so they can authenticate that the post paid mobile number in the lost phone was actually issued to me. I told the OC that this is a new rule I have not heard of. He insisted that a new rule is in place about registering FIRs for mobile phone loss which is that the FIR be endorsed by the service provider since too many people are losing mobile phones or are misusing them. After much altercation I had to call the SP East Khasi Hills to complain about this predicament. The SP called the OC and told him to register the FIR and that was done pronto.
So why was the OC so reluctant to register my FIR? After all, the FIR falls under sub-section (1) of section 154 CrPC. It is the earliest and the first information of a cognizable offence recorded by an officer-in-charge of a police station. In case of theft or damage to property, an FIR is necessary to claim insurance or protect oneself from any liability arising from the misuse of one’s property. A mobile phone with so much personal data has the propensity to be misused and causing irreparable loss to the owner.
A cognizable offence is a criminal offence in which the police are empowered to register an FIR, investigate, and arrest an accused without a court issued warrant. Theft is a cognisable offence as much as murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery, fraud, etc. are. As far as police is concerned, once the FIR is registered, they have to investigate the case, record statements of witnesses, and file a final report. If the police conclude that there is no basis for the complaint or no evidence available to prosecute the case, further action is dropped. This has to be communicated to the complainant. If there is enough evidence, the final charge sheet is submitted before Court and the trial begins.
That a simple task of registering an FIR is made complicated by sending the complainant running from pillar to post shows complete lack of sensitivity and an unresponsive system. It also shows that the police official does not even care that action could be taken against him for not following due procedure. In such a situation it is pointless for higher- ups in the police system to talk of larger issues because evidently their own house is in disorder. The policeman who becomes a thorn in the flesh of his Department ought to be penalised because he antagonises the very people he is supposed to assist. So when the SP City speaks of policing as a service, his men obviously do not concur with him. They still operate as power holders who owe their allegiance only to those in the higher echelons of Government. Their actions with ordinary citizens continue to be abrasive.
So why would any citizen want to waste time taking a selfie with a local policeman? Apart from not knowing how to do a selfie, I would not even want to be photographed with a policeman/woman who provokes the worst in me. Sorry, Mr Ramchandran but no #MySelfieWithaCop for now!