Ten Reasons-Why the Criminals in Khaki get away without being punished:Veteran Prabhjot Singh Chhatwal PLS Retd.

Dear Veterans,
Regards.
Please find below a glimpse of news annalysis by Sidharth
Varadarajan and find your self why criminals in khaki get
away withoutbeing punished.
Veteran Prabhjot Singh Chhatwal PLS retd.
Mob.098554-09128


Ten reasons:Why Criminals in Khaki get away
Siddharth Varadarajan

Behind every man like S.P.S. Rathore who abuses his authority stand
the generals and footsoldiers who help and support him. We need
to take them all down.
S.P.S. Rathore, the criminal former top cop of Haryana, may appear
alone today but we must never forget that he was able to get away
with the sexual molestation of a young child and the illegal
harassment of her family for 19 years because he had hundreds of
men who supported him in his effortto evade justice.
The fact that these men – fellow police officers, bureaucrats,
politicians, lawyers, judges, school administrators – were willing
to bend the system to accommodate a man accused of molesting
a minor speaks volumes for the moral impoverishment of our
establishment and country. Decent societies shun those involved
in sexual offences against children. Even criminals jailed for
‘ordinary’ crimes like murder treat those serving time for
molesting children as beyond the pale. But in India, men like
Rathore have their uses for their masters, so the system circles
its wagons and protects them.
The CBI’s appeal may lead to the enhancement of Rathore’s
sentence and perhaps even the slapping of abetment to suicide
charges, since his young victim killed herself to put an end to the
criminal intimidation her family was being subjected to by
Rathore and his men. But thesystemic rot which the case has
exposed will not be remedied unlesssustained public pressure
is put on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Home
Minister P. Chidambaram, two men who have it intheir power
to push for simple remedies in the way the Indian law
enforcement and justice delivery system works.
First, abolish the need for official, i.e. political sanction to
prosecute bureaucrats, policemen and security forces personnel
when they are accused of committing crimes. The original intent
behind this built-instay-out-of-jail card was to protect state
functionaries from acts donein the course of discharging their
duties in good faith. Somewhere alongthe line, this has come to
mean protecting our custodians of law andorder when they
murder innocent civilians (eg. the infamous Panchalthan
case in Kashmir where the trial of army men indicted by the CBI
for murdering five villagers in 2000 still cannot take place
because the Central government will not grant permission), or
assault or molest women andchildren. No civilised, democratic
society grants such impunity. It isdisgusting to see former
officials and bureaucrats from Haryana saying how they had
wanted Rathore prosecuted but were prevented from doing
so because of pressure. Such officials should either be made
formally to testify in a criminal case against the politicians
who so pressured them or they should themselves be hauled up
for perverting the course of justice.
Second, stop talking about how making the police and army
answerable to the law will somehow demoralise their morale.
Does anybody care aboutthe morale of ordinary citizens any
more? Or the morale of upright policeand army officers, who
do not think it is right for their colleagues to beable to get away
with criminal acts?
Third, bring an end to the cosy relationship between the police
and politicians. Rathore was protected by four chief ministers
of Haryana.He served them and they served him by ensuring his
unfettered rise. It is absurd that the Indian Police is still
governed by a colonial-era Act dating back to 1861. A number
of commissions have made recommendations for reforming the
police over the years; but no government or political party
wants to give up its ability to use and misuse the police for their
own benefit.
Fourth, ensure that police officers who abuse their authority
and engage in mala fide prosecutions are dismissed from
service and sentenced to jailfor a long period of time. Mr.
Chidambaram should use the considerable resources at his
command to find out who were the policemen involved in
filing 11 bogus cases against the teenaged brother of the young
girl Rathore molested. He should then make sure criminal
proceedings are initiatedagainst all of them. The message must
go out to every policeman in the country: If you abuse the law
at the behest of a superior, you will suffer legal consequences.
Fifth, ensure that criminal charges against law enforcement
personnel are fast-tracked as a matter of routine so that a
powerful defendant is notable to use his position to delay
proceedings the way Rathore did for years on end. The
destruction or disappearance of material evidence in such
cases must be treated as a grave offence with strict criminal
liability imposed on the individual responsible for breaking
the chain of custody.
Sixth, empower the National Human Rights Commission
with teeth sothat police departments and state governments
cannot brush aside theirorders as happened in the Rathore
case. This would also require appointing to the NHRC women
and men who have a proven record of defending human rights
in their professional life, something that is donetoday only in
the breach. The attitude of the Manmohan Singh government
to this commission and others like the National Commission
for Women(NCW) and National Commission for Minorities is
shocking. Vacancies are not filled for months on end.
Seventh, ensure the early enactment of pending legislation
broadeningthe ambit of sexual crimes, including sexual crimes
against children. Between rape, defined as forced penetrative
sex, and the vague,Victorian-era crime of ‘outraging the modesty
of a woman’, the IndianPenal Code recognises no other form of
sexual violence. As a result, allforms of sexual molestation and
assault short of rape attract fairly lenient punishment, of the
kind Rathore got. In his case, the judge did not even hand down
the maximum sentence, citing concerns for the criminal’s age.
Sadly, he did not take into account the age of the victim and
neither does the IPC, which fails to distinguish between
‘outraging the modesty’ of an adult woman and a young child.
A draft law changing these provisions and bringing India into
line with the rest of the modern world has been pending with
the NCW and Law Ministry for years. Perhaps the government
may now be shamed into pushing it through Parliament at
the earliest.
Eighth, take steps to introduce a system of protection of
witnesses and complainants. The fate that the family of
Rathore’s young victim had to endure is testament to the fact
that people who seek justice in India do so at their own peril.
Ninth, ensure that robust interrogation techniques like
narco-analysis, which are routinely used against other alleged
criminals, are also employed against police officers accused
of crimes.
Tenth, the media and the higher judiciary must also turn the
lightinward and ask themselves whether they were also
derelict in their duty. The Rathore case did not attract the
kind of constant media attention it deserved, nor do other
cases involving serving police officers accused of crimes
against women, workers, peasants and minorities. As for the
upper courts, their record is too patchy to inspire confidence.
It was, afterall, the high court which chose to disregard the
CBI’s request for including abetment to suicide charges.