Mathura Incident : Time to rethink or perish

Few days ago on 2th June 2016 two brave police officers , one SP city Mukul Dwivedi and one SHO Santosh Kumar Yadav ,lost their life as a result of unprovoked firing from miscreants during evacuation of jawahar park of Mathura and more than 20 miscreants died during vacuation due to various reasons. Unexpectedly Huge amount of arms and ammunition also been recovered after the evacuation.

After this incident people from all areas particularly media and politicians started giving their views on this particular incident. Almost everyone expressed their grief for the martyr policemen and their family and hailed their bravery. Also almost everyone questioned the functioning of police and their intelligence system , local administration, politicians who let the miscreants led by one ram vriksha yadav to occupy the park since more than two years. For all the above questions raised there will be a magisterial or probably judicial inquiry will be done along with probable CBI inquiry and may be we will reach to a certain conclusion.

Already many experts have written on this incident but I want you to look at this incident from a different perspective.Imagine a situation where police after getting proper intelligence input went to the spot with full preparation in order to evacuate the park. And as soon as they see the people sitting on trees with dangerous weapons they after giving warning fired on them as a result of which 3 person dies and others out of fear climb down and surrender and police after using required force evacuated the park. So the result no loss of life of from police side and less loss of life from miscreants side.

Though now it looks like perfect execution but a policeman will specualte and you all must be knowing somewhere that first reaction from media and politicians would have been that " police unnecessarily killed "innocent" people in order to evacuate one park. Complaints would have been sent by "NGOs" to all seniors officers, NHRC, SHRC, Women's commission , SC/ST commissions. And PIL would have been filed in High court and Supreme court by champions of human rights. Magisterial inquiry would have been started immediately, case would been registered with charges involving that of murder u/s 302 IPC and policemen involved in the operation would have been put under suspension either by seniors or under pressure from media , politicians , some commission or court till completion of inquiry. High probability of arrest of policemen involved in firing would have alsobe there.

It is this speculation which deter any police personnel from using any kind of force in law and order situations unless its absolutely necessary . The fear of going through mental torture of multiple inquiries and investigations have resulted in tendency of staying away from proactive use of force. The basic problem here is not of as per say inquiry the problem is multiplicity of inquiry by multiple agencies , commissions and courts. Even if one comes clean out of nine out of 10 inquiries the result of 10th inquiry will have same bearing on his life and career as any or all of previous nine would have. And further if he declared guilty in any of the inquiry media for surely pronounced him villain of highest degree.

Majority of policemen will agree with the fact that it is this mindset which is making police more and more defensive. This is also one of the reason of increasing number of policemen being killed by the criminals as a police personnel have to think many times before using his service weapon even to save his own life.In civilized society police should use force with utmost caution but that does not mean that police stops using power even where its needed out of fear of their career and life.

Multiplicity of institution is one of the sign of prismatic society where by no one is clear about his domain of power and responsibility and it will ultimately result in work paralysis.There is need to streamline the institution of inquiry.  Under police reform somewhere we also need to start thinking on this line and needs to categorically divide the work of various commissions and courts. If one complaint floats against a certain policeman to various forums there is need to make a system where its first gets decided about who will take up that complaint and accordingly inquiry should proceed.

Time has come to look into matters from police point of view as well and public movement have to be made to support the cause of policemen for which IPS officers have to take lead from the front otherwise soon we will see total lawlessness for which we our-self will be responsible.