JOIN USSaturday’s incident of a Mumbai Police inspector shooting his superior officer has come as a rude shock to the Maharashtra government.
There have been instances of fratricide reported in the Army and para-military forces in India, but this particular incident, coupled with the two other recent cases of a policeman being caught in a multi-crore drug scandal and two inspectors raping a model – has taken a toll on the image of the Mumbai Police.
On Saturday evening, assistant sub inspector Dilip Shirke fired five rounds inside the Vakola police station at Santa Cruz. Senior police inspector Vilas Joshi sustained three gunshot wounds in his back and his wireless operator and orderly Balasaheb Aher sustained a wound in his thigh.
Shirke, 55, who shot himself after the incident, died on the spot. Joshi passed away on Sunday at the Lilavati Hospital. Aher is out of danger.
The Crime Branch-CID of the Mumbai Police is investigating the matter. But apparently, the shooting was triggered off in the wake of the absenteeism of Shirke.
Mumbai Police commissioner Rakesh Maria briefed Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis about the incident.
Maria said that when Shirke reported for duty on Saturday evening, he saw that he had been marked absent for the previous day in the station diary. “The night police inspector has marked him absent as during the rounds at 2.30 am and 6.30 am, he was not seen in the place assigned to him,” he said. After an argument with Joshi, Shirke took this extreme step, he added.
Fadnavis said that the officer was sanctioned leave in January for several days and in March, he was absent for two days. “Very recently, he was absent for 7 days, however, for that post-facto sanction was given and he was sanctioned paid leave,” the chief minister said.
This incident comes close on the heels of the incident in which eight persons were arrested for the rape of a model inside a police station and subsequent extortion demands.
The links of a few policemen with drug dealers had also come to light recently with the arrest of ‘drug queen’ Shashikala alias Baby Patankar, who was dealing the recreational drug, Mephedrone - popularly called 'meow meow’.