Delhi Police failed on key fronts

Vikash Narain Rai

former Director, National Police Academy, Hyderabad 

In the hands of the Delhi Police, the Indian Penal Code (IPC) no more seemed a general code to deal with crimes. Rather, the police in the National Capital, which works directly under the Union Home Minister, reflected upon the IPC as a selective tool of inaction, penalisation and complicity during the three days of the CAA violence in north-east Delhi. Both Hindus and Muslims fell prey to the indecisive mindset of the police. Such a gruesome spell of communal violence in Delhi is bound to evoke the memories of 1984 anti-Sikh riots and the then utter failure to minimise the loss of life and property, a fact even the Delhi High Court duly reminded at the outset while hearing the present matter on February 26.

This is an era when partisan politics is being relentlessly pushed through the machinery of administration. The saffronisation of politics is linked to the saffronisation of the administration in the same way as caste politics has remained linked to the domination of certain castes in various state administrations. Therein lies the significance of Amit Shah in a commanding role in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). As long-time Home Minister of Gujarat, he had developed a model of policing that might have failed the test of controlling violence in the streets of Delhi, but would certainly give hope of a good harvest in the political field.

Now, the Delhi Police leadership would expect to be subjected to the same set of parameters, irrespective of the observations of the Supreme Court against it for lacking professionalism and failing to take independent and timely action in the present crisis. It is no secret that the Delhi Police failed miserably on several key fronts like pre-emptive intelligence-gathering; effecting preventive arrests of suspected elements; and engineering a well-meaning community intervention. Their resources must have been diverted to support the much-hyped visit of the US President.

To sum up, a letter drafted by retired IPS officers to the Police Commissioner of Delhi, is produced here:

We write to you as retired officers of the Indian Police Service to express our solidarity with the Delhi Police in these trying times. We are deeply anguished by the killing of a brave member of the force and infliction of serious injuries to a large number of other police personnel, including senior officers. We stand by the family members of the deceased in their hour of grief. We hope that the injured make speedy recovery and resume their duties at the earliest.

At the same time, we express deep concern at the breakdown of law and order across several neighbourhoods of northeast Delhi, which have been in the grip of severe violence since February 24. Unfortunately, the Delhi Police have been blamed for inaction as well as complicity in allowing the violence to take root and spread like wildfire. It appears that the police lost public trust, both for being unable to prevent the violence and also for allegations of siding with perpetrators. We appeal to you in the strongest terms to take resolute and visible action to win back public trust and credibility.

The violence is marked by free moving mobs of young men, stone-throwing, shooting, torching and setting ablaze of markets, shops, vehicles; and attacking of homes.The death toll is mounting by the hour — it has reportedly reached 35. This figure is based on official hospital records; sources on the ground say, the death toll is much higher in reality. According to various sources, hundreds of people have been injured, many by gunshot wounds.

We expected that to uphold the Constitution, the Delhi Police would have shown more intelligence-backed alertness to anticipate the violence, taken the full preventive action at your command, acted decisively to lawfully confront and arrest instigators and perpetrators, and ensured police presence on the ground that could reassure families and local neighbourhoods that the police is committed to their safety. Tragically, with the most severe costs, this was not the case.

Instead, the spiralling violence and loss of life suggests that the Delhi Police has faltered in performing its basic responsibilities to the satisfaction of the affected people. In fact, there is evidence that the police have, at times, abdicated their basic duties. Videos and media reports attest to policemen standing by passively as hundreds of men, with masked faces holding rods and sticks, raised communal slogans and marched unhindered through the streets. The police have been recorded viciously beating up helpless individuals. The police are also reported to have not responded to emergency calls for help to local police stations; and, worse still, seen using communal and insulting language during police action. Journalists on duty have been punched, beaten with rods, and shot at, while the police were either absent or failed to help. Ambulances to transport grievously wounded victims to hospitals were unable to move freely until court orders were passed, directing the Delhi Police to facilitate safe passage.

You will agree that these are grave consequences for the people of Delhi, as well as the Delhi Police. We appeal to you now to show more visible and transparent resolve to win back the trust of the people, prevent further violence, and restore law and order. Most vital is that the police be seen as acting impartially. The way you, and under your leadership, the Delhi Police respond from here will play a large role in showing whether we have the capacity to restore constitutional values or not.

And to this end, we call upon you to do the following:

• Increase manifold the continued presence of senior police officers in the affected areas to send out a strong message of support and protection.
• Publicise all operational decisions to deploy additional force — both men and women officers — in affected areas to ensure there is an absolute halt to all violence.
• Take immediate steps to lawfully apprehend and arrest the perpetrators of the violence to restore confidence of the people.
• Function with full transparency by providing regular updates to the public of police actions.
• Through regular briefing and debriefing sessions, send an unequivocal message down the rank and file that the Delhi Police is the protector of constitutional values and upholder of legal integrity.
• Register FIRs against politicians who have obviously been inciting violence through their speeches, as per the Delhi High Court’s order of February 26.
• Take immediate steps to suspend from active duty, and initiate time-bound inquiries and prosecution of any police personnel seen as having used unreasonable and excess force or acting with bias.
• Take proactive measures to work hand in hand with the Delhi government in a mass outreach for peace to rebuild public trust in policing.

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