A few days ago, a youth from north India was caught by a police for stealing goods worth about Rs. 12,000 from a shopping mall. The youth was taken for interrogation and the Inspector (Two Town Police Station) concerned allegedly had demanded Rs. 40,000 from the father of the youth for hushing up the case.
The same inspector was reported to have demanded about Rs. 1 lakh from a police constable and a home guard constable for not reporting to the higher-ups on a recovery cover up.
After coming to know about the cases, the Commissioner of Police had issued a show-cause notice to the Inspector and even transferred him. This apart, in the last one year a Sub-Inspector from the Fourth Town Police station and an SHO, a constable and an SI from the Three Town Police station were caught red-handed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB). All are under suspension at present.
“It is surprising that an ACP rank officer’s name is making rounds in a recent land grabbing case in PM Palem,” says an ADCP rank officer. Fourteen Circle-Inspector rank officers were transferred a few days ago. The transfers are being viewed as a warning to the erring officers.
CP for attitudinal change
Admitting that corruption is rampant across the ranks and departments, Commissioner of Police Amit Garg said, “corruption is deep-rooted and institutionalised. It is not possible to eradicate it overnight. An attitudinal change has to come. But my duty is to minimise it as far as possible by implementing systems.” To minimise the civil dispute settlements, the CP is available all the seven days in a week for hearing grievances.
The accessibility of the Police Commissioner to the public has reduced the corruption in civil dispute cases. People can just walk in to the CP’s office and state their problem. There were cases when officers were reprimanded for their undue interference, said a senior officer.
To cut the corruption in the land grabbing, the CP is personally supervising the investigations and in the last six months there were about 30 arrests and 25 cases were booked.
“I am trying to put in as much transparency as possible in the system,” he told The Hindu.