Re: [silk] Cops assault innocent pedestrian, claim they are protecting him

[Deepa Mohan]

I am, alas, not surprised, by this incident. Several years ago...maybe more than a decade back....my husband and I were driving, late one night, through Cubbon Park. We were involved in some intense discussion, and my husband was driving very slowly as his concentration was on the argument. Suddenly, a policeman hit our car window and we stopped. He told us not to "misbehave"...and then shocked us by trying to get into the car. Mohan just revved up and drove away with the back door swinging open; he expressed the opinion, later, that many of the constabulary are not far removed from the antisocial elements they are supposed to control, and in addition, we had no means of redressal. Where would one be able to complain about the police?

We went the next day to Cubbon Park police station where the sub-inspector would NOT register a case, claiming that the policeman was only trying to protect us. It didn't help that we could not give the name of the policeman...but seriously, how would we have got it? We were told in no uncertain manner not to make a big thing of it.  Since we felt vulnerable, we capitulated, too. Since this was at a time when there was a crackdown on "antisocial elements" in Cubbon Park, we decided to put it behind us.

To me, all such perversion of the power vested in the police is a manifestation of what I call the British Raj syndrome. We have learnt how to behave when we are in power, from the British, and try to harass and trouble those whom we have power over. We observe the letter of the law, not its spirit.

I have been cycling rather than driving near my home, and I am upset to see how cyclists are treated by the police...the constable at the lights thinks nothing of clouting the head of the youth ahead of me on his cycle for some imagined infringement. I cower down, wondering if I will be next. I persist in my cycling, knowing that I am at an elevated risk level for abuse by the police.

Manish...Jace...I am sorry, but the only way you will find redressal is if you have "contacts" and are able to go to someone high up in the police...even then, you may get a token apology and a token upbraiding of the policeman concerned, and nothing much besides. We are lucky to live in a law-abiding world but every now and then we fall through the glass screen into that other, murky, underworld Bangalore where crime, brutality, and mafia rule....yes, there is definitely something awful at work in the night watches. We just cringe and hope that this dark stinking underbelly of Bangalore will not come to our notice again.