’’Shh! You move to the left, you to the right’’, police officer motions two of his stick-wielding constables as he makes it to the front door of a hut, gun in hand. He knocks it twice and screams, ’’Police! open the door’’. Total silence marks the eerie night. Then suddenly two shots are fired at the door. The inspector hurries to adjacent hut and climbs to the roof...so does the person from within the hut. Bang! Bang! Another 2 shots from the gangster makes the inspector leap from roof to the ground and fires one shot at the goon, before he touches ground. The criminal drops dead.
Wow! Another action flic! Can anyone guess...is it Chow-Yun-Fat, Bruce Willis or our own Akshay Kumar alias Khiladi?
Nopes! This ain’t no action flic man but ’tis a real life encounter of dreaded gangster Nagender Singh (from UP) in Kurar village in Malad by Inspector Vijay Salaskar, Mumbai Police.
We have other able, spirited officers like Praful Bhosale, Daya Nayak, Pradeep Sharma - a la Inspector Rathod from Sarfarosh, who have encountered 250+ gangsters from 1999 to 2001 ending the gang wars and making Mumbai a ’’Ramnagari’’.
This review is a salute to our own Mumbai Police
Personally I believe that both these words are highly misconstrued: ’’Mumbai’’ for its glam and ’’Police’’ for collecting hafta (bribe).
About Mumbai:
Mumbai represents India’s financial capital. Several industries - small and big have their presence here. This combined by the elite partying crowd (Read Bombay Times for this) and several such factors makes the city appear glamorous - ’’the small apple’’.
Thus, greatest problem for Mumbai is its ever-increasing population density. The influx of people has resulted in encroachment of any available space, slums and then ’’Slumlords’’. Land price skyrocketed. Builders teamed with local Goondas, with backing of our ’’concerned and patriotic’’ politicians, for grabbing land. This led to gun trading, flesh trade, smuggling, drug peddling and... well you name it.
Mumbai had other share of problems from its own ’’secular’’ public who had the incessant urge to go rioting on the streets, destroying, demolishing, burning essential utilities like buses, taxis, autos, trains, shops for reasons as pathetic as despoliation of statues of their leaders. The aftermath of Babri Masjid demolition from 6th Dec 92 to Feb 93 was the worst. (Will history repeat itself with what happened in Gujarat or will happen in Ayodhya?)
Dawood/I.S.I tried to disrupt economy by the infamous serial bomb blasts (that made bombay known as ’’Bomb-bay’’), circulating fake currency notes, extortion.
About Police:
Foreign MS members need not feel wary about visiting Mumbai - cause with great efforts, our Mumbai Police has restored the law and order situation. They have eradicated the gang wars completely and it is because of their alertness and pro-activeness that Mumbai has not become Kashmir. They should be lauded for their commendable job, considering that most of the Hawaldars do not have hi-tech gadgets/weapons but carry sticks and rifles. Having the experience now for controlling riots and bearing the pressure of guarding the nations economic capital they are all geared up for bringing criminals to book and are going hi-tech now with GPS and GIS technologies.
They have a superb network of Khabris (informers) and are famous for fast swift proactive measures. A recent glaring example would be the recent raids on Moonz planet cybercafe at Jogeshwari where counterfeit currency worth Rs. 1, 45, 45, 400 was seized together with arms. What were the goons up to?
Their duties:
They have to carry out various functions besides crime investigation, prevention and control and maintaining the law and order. They have to
provide security to VVIPs and important places/properties
enquiring into non-cognizable cases like deaths, fires
enquiring about missing persons
registration of foreign nationals, verification before passport issuance
organizing blood donation camps, campaigning for social causes like AIDS awareness
helping BMC in inculcating ’civic sense’ in people ( what with literate people littering, urinating in public places or spitting pan )
.... and so much more.
Traffic management by R.T.O. and traffic police is a branch of Mumbai Police too. We have a police escort in ladies compartment in late hours of the day after the Jayabala case.
Their problems:
Most of the employees have a very low morale. Most of educated mass would never opt for a career with Mumbai Police (except for the vital posts through UPSC, MPSC exams). It’s often like ’’you have nothing to do, why don’t you join as a Hawaldar.’’ Their greatest cause of misery is a pathetic salary and extra hours of work that are often under ’’social cause’’ and would not gain them any money. There are other causes of misery like:
the political-criminal nexus whereby even a local thug caught after daring attempts has to be released due to political pressures from above. Probably ’’encounter killing’’ was a retaliatory step by the police, till human rights came in the way.
the weak judiciary system that takes years for the case to appear before the court (leave alone solving them). The cumbersome processes that discourages the relatively bold extinct species who are ready to appear in courts to testify against any criminal.
The sad part:
Corruption! Nothing corrupts like power! Hence we have cases of police extortions, encounter of innocent people, rapes by police and other such shameful acts by some immoral people in uniform that undo or wipe the positive image that was developed after great hardships by the loyal forces. This is the reason why people remember police as the ’’pan-tambakku (tobacco) eating and hafta collecting pandus’’ rather than as an able institution that guard us.
Irresponsibility: This stems out from low morale. Just the other day I came across a madman trying to sleep on railway track. When people made a hue and cry the madman got up and lifted a huge stone and people fled away. I traced for some railway police who were not there and approached a policeman outside the station. He shocked me by his indifference, ’’Sir, forget it, I cannot do anything about it. You see it falls under purview of railway police. Why don’t you approach them instead?’’. The madman died. He came under a train!
I am sure many of you must have had similar experiences, which you can put in comments.
But I urge all of you to be more responsible citizens and respect the Khaki.
Remember Mumbaikars, when in trouble, dial 100.