Sometimes, the law-enforcer is an ass

Reporter’s diary

This is a real-life incident narrated to me by a lady police officer. Though it occurred many years ago, the message remains relevant even now. From my notes, I shall let the officer tell the story in her own words:

On my first day of work as a young probationer, I was posted at a police station in Bengaluru on night duty. My boss who was on rounds returned at around 11.30 pm and I could hear a commotion outside the station. The officer was shouting at the top of his voice, unleashing the choicest of obscenities. Having come from a traditional family, I was to learn soon that such profanities were an integral part of the police vocabulary.

The constables herded three women and two men into the station and bundled them into a corner while the officer went to his chamber to complete the paperwork. All five were arrested on charges of prostitution.

As I was trying to gather my wits, I could hear one of the women weeping inconsolably. Soon, the sobs grew louder and after a while, she mustered the courage to walk up to me and plead, “Madam, please let me go. I am doing this for my family.”

Her name was Sameera (name changed). She had two grown-up daughters. Her husband, a mechanic, was the sole breadwinner of the family until he became bedridden due to a debilitating kidney ailment. The burden of the family had fallen on Sameera, but with the meagre amount she earned as a household help, she could barely keep her kitchen running, let alone pay for the medical expenses of her husband. That was when she had decided to sell her body to run her family.

With tears rolling down her cheeks, she begged, “Madam, you are a woman. You can understand what I am going through. If my family comes to know about my arrest, it will destroy my life. My daughters will be on the streets.”

I beseeched my senior officer to let her go, but he was unmoved, “You mind your own business. I have seen hundreds of such people and all of them have the same story. They deserve no sympathy.” The next day, she was produced before a magistrate who remanded her to custody.

I soon forgot about the incident. About three years later, when I was on patrol duty, a woman in a pair of blue jeans and a white top approached me. “Madam, do you recognise me,” she asked, and I said, “No.”

“Do you remember when you arrested me a few years ago, I had begged you to release me, and you had refused? When you booked me, there was only one sex worker in my family. Now, there are three. And you are responsible for that,” she said. I was taken aback.

When Sameera went to jail, her husband had to be informed as per the procedure. Enraged, the husband had walked out of her life and abandoned their daughters. With both parents away, the young girls had no source of income and had turned to the flesh trade to earn a living.

By the time Sameera was released, she had lost her family. Nobody was willing to give her a job. The only recourse open to her was to become a full-time sex worker, not to satisfy her body but to fill her stomach.

There was no hint of emotion on her face. Looking me straight in the eye, she asked, “Now, tell me madam, who is responsible for destroying my family and turning my daughters into prostitutes?”

I had no answer. Our insensitivity had destroyed a family.

(M Gautham Machaiah has traversed across print, electronic and digital media donning both journalist and corporate robes @GauthamMachaiah)