The Hindu Business Line : Blood-curdling

The visuals of the savage beating by the Mumbai police of the young protesters against reservation, repeatedly telecast by TV news channels on May 13, must have left the viewers stunned.

There was a tall person who was in ordinary pants and loosely flying blue shirt who was particularly brutal: After every bout of cruel beating, he looked around beaming as if he never had it so good. Since he was dressed in a casual manner, there was no knowing whether he was a policeman at all.

If he was from a department like intelligence or anti-corruption not requiring the wearing of uniform, it was improper on the part of the top echelons of the police to have permitted him to join in the lathi-swinging spree. Or, if he belonged to the law-and-order branch of the police, he ought to have been in uniform. The Director-General of Police of Maharashtra owes an explanation as to why and how this perfunctorily clad individual was allowed to indulge his sadism the way he did. Some months ago, TV news channels showed similar blood-curdling scenes of the Meerut police mercilessly beating up couples in full public view in a bid to preserve morals intact according to their perverse lights.

In a similar bid, a couple of years ago, the Tamil Nadu police pounced on respectable citizens, men and women, having an innocent stroll in a park and dragged them to the police station labelling them as pimps and prostitutes. (The Chennai Police Commissioner later tendered a public apology.)

In all such instances, as in the latest one of Mumbai savagery, inquiries are routinely promised but the public never comes to know the result or any disciplinary action taken against the police officials committing such excesses. In any case, the inquiries are ab initio tainted, being entrusted to the same police brass which had been a party to the brutalities in the first place. The Mumbai inquiry also is sure to go the way of all such inquiries.

Alas for the land of Gandhiji and Nehru!

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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