On January 14, the Delhi Police got a few Âadmonitory lessons from Tis Hazari judge Kamini Lau. 바카라Have you read the Constitution?바카라 Lau asked, as she tore into them for arresting Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad in connection with anti-CAA Âprotests, and for behaving as if 바카라Jama Masjid is in Pakistan바카라. (She granted him bail the next day바카라although clouding the trail a bit by telling him to stay off Delhi and not 바카라interfere바카라 in its elections.) The focus here, however, is not Azad. It바카라s how the police바카라as an institution, as the most visible instrument of law바카라seem all too often to Âoccupy a space far away from the ideal. Which is, working for the citizenry, securing their pursuit of legal freedoms in a hugely unequal, violent society. Something else Judge Lau said바카라that Section 144 of the CrPC cannot be used as an instrument of repression바카라offers a clue. The structure of power in which the police are embedded is still that of the colonial era, where the people are seen as the enemy.
Scan, in your mind, the images of brute police force in Jamia Millia Islamia, including inside its library. (That this helped 바카라nationalise바카라 the anti-CAA protests only showed what Indians thought of it.) Contrast that with its mute inaction as a masked mob ran amok in JNU. And later, a transparent lack of impartiality as DCP Joy Tirkey listed the accused at a press conference바카라naming Left-affiliated students (who bore enough signs of being victims in that episode), and a conspicuous silence on the ABVP. Fan out to Lucknow, where the arrest and torture of Sadaf Zafar only crowned charges of a reign of Âcommunally motivated brutalities across mofussil UP. Mangalore police in Karnataka invited charges of a Âsimilarly violent partisanship.
But the problem is deep-rooted. It lies in a whole Âhistory of being used as an instrument of partisan agendas by all parties in power. Think only of the Emergency years바카라infamous episodes like the custodial torture/murder of Rajan in Kerala바카라or the firing on protesting adivasis in Nandigram under Buddhadeb Bhattacharya바카라s Left regime. We go beyond the Âheadlines바카라and dip into history바카라to try reveal an Âintrinsic skew at the heart of Indian policing.
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