Cops under lens for ‘extra-judicial punishment’ to snatchers, thieves

A set pattern is being noted in the arrest of accused in almost all snatching and theft cases being registered by the city police for the past nearly two weeks. When these accused are presented before the media or in the courts, they all have their legs fractured.

3 more held in snatching case

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• At least two of the three accused arrested by the police today in a case of snatching of Rs 300 from a Nepali domestic help in Adarsh Nagar had fractures on their legs. One of the accused was brought in on wheel chair.
• SSP Gurpreet Singh said, “The accused had tried to speed up their bikes to escape. Since they drove rashly, they got injuries on their legs.”
• A senior cop, however, said these were the extreme measures that the police were resorting to for bringing crime under control. This will serve as a deterrent, he said.

Videos of these accused with plasters on their legs and walking with limp in the police custody are being made and uploaded on social media. These videos are also being played on the social media accounts of the Jalandhar Commissionerate Police with logos and even picture of Commissioner of Police Swapan Sharma being shown at the end.

While a section of society is appreciating the move, saying that the accused deserved to be taught a lesson, there are others who claim that this was a violation of human rights and the accused could have been subject to extra-judicial punishment.

The police, when questioned in press interactions, have always maintained that the accused had got the injuries accidentally while trying to escape during the arrest or had jumped off from an upper floor of the building.

However, certain activists and lawyers from the city have already started condemning it.

“Our police still seem to be working with a colonial mindset. They are using all sorts of coercive measures which they legally cannot. In a way, they are adopting the policing trends as seen in Uttar Pradesh, believing that the police cannot be made accountable”, said human right activist and lawyer Parminder Vig.

The activists are also raising concerns as to why all accused, arrested in snatching cases, are getting fractures on their legs and why is this not happening with the accused in the Jalandhar Rural Police area.

Likewise lawyer KK Arora maintains, “The police had to cut a sorry figure after the video of a girl being dragged on road over a distance by snatchers went viral. To cover it up, the cops now seem to be only appeasing their political bosses by making such videos. But ideally, the police should have started some reformatory measures by getting into the root of the problem. Other than de-addiction, such people need to be imparted some training to divert their minds just the way former SSP Dinkar Gupta had launched project Koshish in notorious Ganna village of Phillaur where addicts were engaged in pickle making.”