Consider these: Within weeks of the shocking gang rape incident in Delhi on December 16, 2012, a heart wrenching incident came to light in Chhattisgarh, though it did not get much public attention. |
A disgusted rape victim tried to commit suicide on January 22, feeling helpless after powerful persons who raped and filmed her for a year in confinement continued to roam free.
A note she wrote before trying to inflict self-harm revealed the gory tale of atrocities she suffered. In total disregard to law of the land, the state police reportedly did not record her statement even after her condition improved. And worse was that friends and family of the rapists continued to visit the girl at the hospital to put pressure on her family members not to seek police action.
Almost a year ago, police in Kolkata did one better. They asked the victim of rape as to why she wanted to register a complaint. “You are a frequent visitor to night clubs; you are used to such late night (activities). Come with me to the night club, we will have a chilled beer and enjoy,” these were apparently the words of a police investigating officer to the victim of rape who dared to register a complaint with the police.
The woman in question, an Anglo-Indian, had gone to Kolkata’s Park Street Police station to lodge a complaint against a person who had abducted her after befriending her at a pub. She was raped by him and his friends at gunpoint. Fortunately, the police could not get away with their ways as the incident caught media attention. The police personnel were subsequently suspended and a departmental inquiry initiated against them.
Worse, the police also concoct stories to dilute rape cases and protect the culprits. In a Bihar town recently, two youth abducted and raped a school girl. Though the two were arrested, the police found ways to bail them out subsequently on the ground that “the victim was already in physical relationship with the duo.”
Even senior police officers are no exception when it comes to utter lack of sensitivity while handling incidents of crime against women. Recently, Rajasthan High Court ordered suspension of an additional superintendent of police for diluting the charges in a gang rape case.
Instances of police failures or their outright complicity that help bail out the accused in crimes against women are countless. The police, it would seem, are often part of the problem, not the solution. Therefore, the fight against the rising incidence of crime against women goes far beyond seeking changes in law.
The Justice JS Verma Committee, set up to suggest amendments to criminal law after the Delhi gang rape, in its voluminous 631-page report emphasised that a comprehensive body of legislation alone will not be sufficient to deal with sexual offences. “Government agencies, including the police whose primary duty is to ensure the safety and security of all its citizenry, including women, who make up half of the population, must function efficiently in order to ensure that the purposes and objectives of the legislation are complied with,” says the introduction of the chapter on “Police Reforms” in the Justice Verma report.
Recently, the Supreme Court too came up with a scathing attack (State of UP Vs Chhoteylal) in a case. “We are constrained to observe that criminal justice system is not working in our country as it should. The police reforms have not taken place despite directions of this court in the case of Prakash Singh and others Vs Union of India……the investigators hardly have professional orientation; they do not have modern tools. On many occasions impartial investigation suffers because of political interference.
The criminal trials are protracted because of non-appearance of official witness on time and the non-availability of the facilities for recording evidence by video conference. The public prosecutors have their limitations”.
That our politicians are not keen in having a professional police is evident from the fact that despite repeated indictment from the apex court, and recommendations from a number of commissions and committees on the need for urgent police reforms, nothing has moved. It has been a common refrain of senior police officials that instead of bashing the police, people should ask their government why it is shying away from implementing recommendations on police reforms. Since the politicians will not be able to manipulate the police, the machinery which is the single most important tool to exercise control over people and settle political scores, they stonewall any attempt at making the police force independent and professional.
The National Police Commission, National Human Rights Commission, Ribeiro Committee, Padmanabhaiah Committee and Malimath Committee have more or less been unanimous that the police reforms should focus on having: (a) state security commission at state levels, (b) transparent procedure for the appointment and fixed tenure for police chiefs, (c) separation of investigation from law and order and (d) a new police act that reflects the democratic aspirations of people and requiring community participation policing.
Delhi-based Centre for Social Research (CSR) director Ranjana Kumari said she has personally received several cases where victims of sexual offences are reluctant approaching police to seek justice.
Following the anti-gang rape protests, several women have come out to complain of rape and molestation by live-in partners and boyfriends. “But, Police officials refuse to register cases in most of the complaints on the pretext that the relationship was consensual. Cases are registered on a few complaints, but only after the complainants stood their ground and insisted on registering their cases.”
Sexual offence is the least reported among the crimes. It is so because the police refuse to accept the complaint. Kumari says that police refuse to lodge cases to keep the crime graph down. They employ methods like humiliating the complainants to keep them away from seeking justice. But the reported cases are also low because in our society victims worry about the stigma they carry of the sexual attack if they go public.
What is evident is that the police lack sensitivity about the nature of crimes against women. It is also well known that the police betray bias because of the societal orthodoxies. Reports reveal that 40 per cent cases related to crime against women are dismissed as 'false' by the police in Rajasthan.
Dr Renu Pamecha, who runs an NGO in the state, named Mahila Punarwas Samiti, says that what is needed are not mahila police stations, but a ‘gender sensitive’ police force. Most of the personnel posted at women police stations are also males and even if women police personnel are deployed it does not make much difference - their mindset is the same – patriarchal - she complains.
Because of the attitudinal problems, the police refuse to act even when they have specific directives from political leadership or the courts. Recently, UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s instructions to the state police to act on hundreds of incidents of rapes fell on deaf ears. Apart from constant training in gender sensitisation and refresher courses are also needed to make the police sensitive. Then, it is said, as part of police reforms, the government should also improve the working conditions of the men-in-uniform.
“It is true that police sometimes behave in a little insensitive manner but they are not solely responsible for that. Their duty schedule and lifestyle is such that after sometime, they become a machine devoid of any human feeling,” says a senior West Bengal police officer. In many cases across the country, the police personnel don’t have their own buildings and have to operate from broken and rented apartments. The constables after doing a duty for 12 to 15 hours have to rest in shanties. Can anyone expect sensitivity form them?” he asks.
The latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data of 2011 gives enough indication that society continues to use the tool of physical assault to exhibit crude male dominance. The rape cases registered in country went up by a startling 873.3 per cent, with only 2,487 registered in 1971 to 24,206 in 2011, reveals NCRB.
The bare data means nothing if there is no an honest introspection from the managers of security estate. At the state level, the police are yet to suo moto undertake review the status of the registered sexual offence cases with them to ascertain lacunas in their approach to deal with the crime. On the contrary, most of state police chiefs didn’t even find it necessary to respond to mails from the Verma panel seeking their suggestions on dealing the incidence of rising crime against women. This prompted Justice Verma to say that action should be taken against them.
Public faith and confidence in our police system can be ensured only when the people in power will respond to the crisis of confidence what we witness today. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen in his book, ‘The Idea of Justice’ said: “…The success of democracy is not merely a matter of having the most perfect institutional structure that we can think of. It depends inescapably on our actual behaviour patterns and the working of political and social interactions….The working of democratic institutions, like all other institutions, depend on the activities of human agents in utilising opportunities for reasonable realization…”
(With inputs from Saibal Gupta in Kolkata, P J Joychen in Jaipur, Abhay Kumar in Patna, Vishnu Sukumaran in New Delhi and Sanjay Pandey in Lucknow)
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