Ram Revisited: Whither Accountability?: R.S. Mooshahary

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THIRD EYE

Ram Revisited: Whither Accountability?

A few days before police killed PC Ram on July 11, a prominent city-based journalist told me that if Ram were alive they would kill him. I thought by 'they' he meant ULFA but strangely, his "they" referred to the government. I asked him in disbelief why the government should do that. He went on a long explanation and cited examples in support of his view. Prima facie, he proved right as on July 11, Ram fell to police bullets. It was a fact stranger than fiction and the bizarre unfolding of this event in sordid sequence has made everybody suspicious of everything, angry with everyone in the helm of affairs.

As an ex-policeman, I tend to sympathize with the police because I know the pitfalls in their nature of work. However, in this particular case I would rather say that the police could have spared the life of Ram with a bit of prudence and sense of responsibility. They had information on Ram, as revealed by the Special Branch, and common sense should have alerted them that he was likely to be there, when they surrounded the place under the cover of darkness. It was an ordinary village thatch house without any protection from gunfire. It also was clear that not many militants could hole up in that small hut. Indeed, it was the opportunity to rescue Ram without harm, without the trade-off between the jailed militants and the hostage or ransom, and demonstrate their professional capability and earn public plaudits; but sadly, they just wasted it.

They have no convincing reason, having surrounded the area with sufficient force to prevent escape, why they could not have waited until daybreak instead of going gung-ho and spraying the hut with bullets. They were aware that the persons inside were unprotected and, if not Ram, the inmates of the house could have been held hostage there. Did they intend to kill them all? It will not be wrong to believe that it was a one-sided firing as none in the raiding party got even a scratch, which was most unlikely if the militants fired dozens of bullets at them, which they claimed. Whatever be the police point of view, Ram surely deserved a more human approach from them and not killed crouching underneath a cot in a pathetic attempt to protect himself from the raining bullets. By all account, it was a botched-up operation lacking in strategy for hostage rescue and sensitivity to human rights.

The investigation of Ram's kidnapping was a case of contradiction and credibility gap with the police proceeding in his pursuit without any clue. They said they knew where he was, but did not launch any rescue operation for fear of harming him. The Chief Minister then put everybody at ease saying that there would soon be good news indicating Ram's imminent release. After that, the police exhumed a putrefied corpse and claimed it was Ram's, which later turned out to be embarrassingly wrong. Finally, the police pumped no fewer than nine bullets on him as if in vengeance for the trouble he gave them while in captivity. On the hindsight, we can say now that Ram should not have resurrected but remained buried to live longer, for then the police would have left him alone and he could have walked into freedom and avoided this cruel fate in the hands of those whose job is to protect life and liberty. For 84 days, the hapless man suffered in captivity and when he saw a faint flicker of freedom, he died a frightening death.

Yet another tragedy struck within four days of Ram's. On July 15, early evening, a group of about 20-armed militants entered the residential colony of CCI, Bokajan, took 11 employees hostage, who included senior mining manager KN Jha and mining supervisor Janardan Bhagat, and forced them to walk. On the way, they hijacked a truck and herded the hostages on to it. The truck fell into a roadside pond whereupon they resumed their foot march taking along the truck's driver and the cleaner. Jha, unable to keep marching, begged the militants to shoot him and soon collapsed and died. This heart-rending and pathetic incident could not have happened had the police done their duty. At the least, they should have intercepted the party while on their move, but there was absolutely no attempt to do that. The militants on their own released the other hostages consequent on Jha's death. A week earlier, the police was in the limelight not for doing their duty but for extorting money from the truckers in broad daylight on the highway, compelling the people to gather there and chase them. These incidents in quick succession and many other crimes that are taking place without the police being able to prevent or detect them, have raised a question mark over police morale, efficiency and accountability.

It is a welcome decision, as disclosed by the Chief Minister, to hand over the Ram case to CBI for investigation. However, more importantly, it is necessary to assess the functioning of the police, which is the most visible arm of the State. The force is without a head on a regular basis since January-end as the process of selecting the DGP is yet to be completed. Unlike other departments, the police is highly hierarchical with the leader exercising total control over the subordinates, guiding and inspiring them. The leader must have a sense of tenure security to enable him to exercise his authority, and this vacuum seems to have made the force rudderless - devoid of direction and accountability.

There is a Unified Command (UC) in the State, which reviews the security scenario and acts to contain militancy. Often the agencies involved in the UC work on cross-purposes, guided more by one-upmanship rather than operational imperatives. They are also prone to make tall claims, like they have broken the backbone of ULFA and that it is a dying outfit, and so on and so forth, that the public disdains. There are many instances of mishandling of situations creating public furore and opposition to Army operations. Such acts in the long-term perspective prove to be quite counterproductive as the alienation of public grows against them. In the Ram incident, they could have averted the fiasco of exhuming the wrong corpse had the Army acknowledged that one of their men was missing from there after ULFA had claimed to kill him for being an Army spy. It was unbelievable why that poor man was sent to a place where he could not merge with the local population, which is the first precondition for collection of any intelligence.

Police function is essentially an interface with the population. Without carrying the people, they cannot perform. People are their clients, guides, and conscience keepers, and they must, therefore, make it their first charter of duty to guard the people from lawbreakers and assure them a sense of security. What is happening now is just the opposite — the people are at the mercy of militants and anti-socials without any effective police intervention. The police needs to constantly remember that they are the servants of law and not the servants of politicians in power. Their loyalty must be to law and not to individuals. After the Supreme Court directive on police reform, the State governments are framing new legislations to provide functional autonomy to their police forces.

It must, however, be remembered that autonomy does not mean license to abuse power. We have to train, guide and inspire the police to be accountable and effective, and insulate them from the vagaries of shifting political power equations. For this, a person of impeccable integrity and competence with deep understanding of the State's complex situation must head the State Security Commission mandated by the Supreme Court. His track record and standing should be able to command the confidence of the agencies involved in the management of State security. Only such a person can integrate and unify the multiple forces deployed in the State and transform the mindset of the police and make them people-friendly, efficient and responsive to the anguished voice of the citizens.

(The writer, a former Director General of Police in Kerala and Director General of the National Security Guard and the Border Security Force, is currently the State Chief Information Commissioner, Assam )