The Capital Of My Country- A Stunning Confession (full article)

<<  This Article was a part of an old series called 'Kartavya Dharmadhikari' which is now discontinued  >>

A first hand account by Kartavya Dharmadhikari :-

        "Yeah I admit that I had never known that even I could be the target one day. It was much easier to watch this happen to others.", said Jaspal Singh.

        To begin with, I did not like when anybody raised their voice in my office. Only I could do that here!  Jaspal Singh was not helping huimself. He could not afford to behave in this manner over here if he needed our help. He strongly demanded that he will talk only to me and not to anyone else. Tens of people visit my office everyday. But my team forwards only a select few very sensitive and high profile cases to me. That's the protocol that we have been following. But Jaspal Singh was in no mood to obey.

        After the whole hubbub I anyway decided to listen to him. We would first thoroughly interrogate anyone who came to us with a case. I made Jaspal Singh sit in the room. I was asking him questions while 3 of my subordinates were taking notes. Jaspal Singh said," I left Delhi at once with my family. It was no longer safe for us over there. The mob had almost killed me." It was really fascinating to hear 'the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Delhi), Jaspal Singh' say those words. Frankly, it sounded very funny to me. Here in front of me was a 56 year old police officer, trying hard to gather himself after all what life taught him so late. In our lives, some events can be so bizarre that we are forced to do really very weird things. I mean look at this man. He met me for the first time and he was giving me some really classified information. Information which can be an overnight blockbuster in the media. Information about people who are really strong. And I mean it- Stronggg !! And information of that level which will make them want to kill you if they knew that you knew.

        No matter how tough you are, you really can not see an old man, a family man, cry. The case: a girl was gang-raped near sector number 1234, Delhi. Sector 1234 falls under the jurisdiction of DCP Jaspal Singh. There was absolute outrage in the whole country after that incident. Yes, we all know about it. I was aware that there were protests against a few police officials and politicians of that area. Little did I know that DCP Jaspal Singh was attacked by a mob. A mob sent by a politician whose Jaspal was a loyal servant of for the past so many years. The politician's name was Satyadev (ironically). And Oh Boy, Satyadev gave up on him...!! That too big time...!!

        Though I did feel pity for the old man, I told him straight on his face that whatever he was telling me will not be taken as an excuse or justification for his sins. With tears and rage in his eyes he said," People blame the police for inaction. And if nothing else prevails, they blame the judiciary of our country. Kartavya, tell me the truth. What happens when a police officer in Mumbai arrests, for any damn reason, a man who is politically powerful ?" I admitted that somehow they are set free. Let alone arresting, even if such a powerful man is caught for traffic violations, he will make a few phone calls and eventually he does not get any punishment.

        He said," Exactly. Kartavya, there are three types of people- citizens, police and politicians. When there are more citizens and less politicians, the police remains police. But do you know what happens when there are more politicians and less citizens? The police no longer remains police. The police becomes a part of the powerless poor citizens. " I understood where he was going with this. It must be impossible for these police officers to bring the wrongdoers to justice when most of the times the wrongdoer is- either a politician himself, a member of a political party, a very rich industrialist who provides funds to the polician or a relative of any of the three.

        " Do you know why Satyadev targeted me ? I have had close association with him for the past couple of decades. I know about all the hooligans who provide support to Satyadev. And one such group of these hooligans is involved in the gang-rape. I can easily identify the ones involved. Due to so much pressure from the media and the public I was about to disclose their identities. Satyadev started threatening me. But I was certain that I will go ahead and speak it all out in the press conference. Even my seniors did not support me. They were all busy doing a lot of brainstorming on not how to protect the people but instead on how to fool the people by applying delaying tactics. They were scared of Satyadev and now I know why !! Not only there was pressure, I knew that it was both- my moral responsibility as a human to speak the truth and also my duty as a police officer to not let off the criminals. But before I could speak up, netaji Satyadev had already given a speech mentioning everything against me. There is no denying that crime is on a all time high in the capital of my country. And it was really very easy to point this out and prove my lack of capabilities. In public, he demanded my resignation and condemned the whole act. In private, he showed green flags to the hooligans to mob me and my family at my residence. The sadest part of the story is, the citizens accompanied the hooligans. They believed in Satyadev."

        " Kartavya, I know many things about you. You guys have made it to the news quite a few times. And that's why I am here. Please see if there is a way out. My only desire is to let the people know the truth. I want them to know the sequence of all events that occurred. I want to regain my respect. I am a father of three. And I want them to be proud of their papa. I anyway don't want my job back. And I will be more than happy to settle here in Mumbai."

        I am a man with very high ideals. Deep inside my heart I repeated that I am not going to accept his statements as an excuse for his previous sins; For all the good that he could have done as a police officer but he didn't; For not performing his duties in a righteous way. Deep inside I also feel that he did deserve something like that for being a puppet of someone like Satyadev for so long. Sad that his family had to suffer. But the mr. Enlightened should have resigned long long ago if such has been the scenario always. I also believe that the source of this enlightenment of his is not a noble one. He turned good only when bad happened to him. Else I am sure he would have not changed even a bit in his entire life.

        But still I did not utter these words to him. It was none of my business anyway. My job was to make this incident public and see if we can legally sue Satyadev and his men for what they did to DCP Jaspal Singh. Though I do agree on many points told by Jaspal. Firstly, when you question our judiciary, it is really a question on our democracy itself. People need to realize that judiciary is and will always remain an independent body. It is the investigative bodies which are pliable. Though these investigative bodies perform great when it comes to investigating a less powerful man, strangely their performance drops drastically when it comes to investigating the really powerful. The judiciary simply gives the judgement based on what the investigative bodies and the public prosecutors present to it. Secondly, there is also no denying the helplessness of the police when it comes to dealing with the very powerful. I still maintain respect for the police.

         And there are many such accusations which suggest that such issues are rampant in the capital of my country. Let us see what another day brings to me...