STATE VIOLENCE

Vibhuti Narayan Rai IPS (Retd) on Communal Face of Indian Police

Communal riots play a vital role in fanning communalism. Aided by my field experiences in the police department, I can say that whenever a riot breaks out in a city, its adjoining areas get vitiated by a unique kind of communal thinking. During such a trying time, even an ordinary person loses his poise and begins to view things from communal standpoint and all talks of secularism appear meaningless. Communal riots thus contribute in a big way to tear asunder the secular fabric of the society.

For my study, I selected 10 major riots and wrote a book on my findings. This book sums up my encounter with the riots.

First of all, I think even a communal incident of a very big magnitude with widespread cases of violence and loot can be effectively controlled within 24 hours of its occurrence. If it continues even after that period, it means the state government wants to perpetrate it or there is collusion between the rioters and the police administration. In most of the riots, the police could not remain neutral and took sides. Its actions are anti-Muslim and favourable to the Hindus. It is because of a peculiar attitude in the police force. They have been told that the Muslims are the oppressors, violent, unreliable and dirty while the Hindus religiously inclined, liberal and tolerant. It is because of this wrong pre-conceived notions that the policemen are prone to think that a riot is always started by the Muslims and therefore the Muslims suffer the maximum of the casualties as well as arrest and search operations in any of the big communal riots and the police force, taking undue advantage of the underrepresentation of the Muslims in the police force, support and favour the Hindus without fear. This is the reason why the Hindu riot victims take the police as their friends while the Muslims their enemies as I found after I talked to hundreds of the persons affected by the riots. I think besides conceding the Muslim demand to increase their percentage in the police, the society itself has to be rid of the baseless rumours circulated about the Muslims. To meet this objective, there should be proper arrangement for the right kind of training for the policemen Since the police are a part of the state government, the Muslims' lack of confidence in the police force may in the coming days mean the same for the state government.

It is indisputably true that compared to the police, the role of the para-military forces has been better in this regard, because of two reasons. Firstly, the personnel in the security agencies are drawn from almost every state which give it an all-India image. Then even a small detachment of the security forces is led by a man of officer rank while in the police it is done by an S.H.O., a Havaldar or an Inspector. The added advantage of such a posting is that it is effected only for a brief period. (But) the Muslim riot victims take the army as their friend.

Though the political parties and the criminal elements do play roles in the most of the riots yet one should not infer from it that the common folks have no part in the same. Suresh Khaparde, a responsible police officer in the Mumbai police, has studied the Bhiwandi riots and has found that in Bhiwandi the rioters were mostly those who had no previous criminal records.

We have no direct, simple and readymade solution to the problem. As for bringing about a radical change in peoples' very way of thinking and perceiving realities, no less that the adoption of a long-term policy will work. Yet what can be done under the present circumstances is to make the police and the administration accountable for the riots. Bhagalpur, Meerut (Hashimpura) and Mumbai riots in the wake of the demolition of the Babari Mosque have brought forth some shocking revelations. In Meerut riots, PAC jawans herded together 40-50 Muslim youths, brought them to Ghaziabad, shot them dead and threw their bodies into the river. Similarly in Bhagalpur during the riots, the rioters first killed over 100 Muslims in presence of the policemen, hid their bodies first in a pond and then in a well and after some days buried their bodies in the fields and grew cabbages over it. This happened barely 20-22 kilometres away from the district headquarters. That the police did not know about it was nothing but a blatant lie. The entire city came/to know of it while the police feigned ignorance when was just unbelievable, impossible. During the riot there, police wireless sets were used to issue the directives to kill the Muslims. I think the District Magistrate and the Senior Superintendent of Police; of the city where a riot takes place should not only be immediately placed under suspension but punished also. This system of accountability can be effective to a great extent in the prevention of the riots.     

 MUSLIM INDIA BOUND VOLUMES 1983 - 1996