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| The other side of Police image | | | In Jammu and Kashmir, the state Police mostly remains as much in news, for a variety of reasons, as much the politics does. The reasons for being in the news and sharing a controversial slot thereof have its own negative and positive aspects. The latest case is the suspension of six officers of different ranks in the alleged case of tampering of evidence in a broad day light murder investigation. Late on Friday evening, an official handout issued by the state government read as: “Pending inquiry the government has placed under suspension SSP Jammu Manohar Singh, SP Jammu City South Mumtaz Ahmed, Sub-Divisional Police Officer Jaswant Singh Katoch, the Station House Officer Sultan Mirza, the Munshi of Gandhi Nagar Police Station and the Investigation Officer”. These officers were placed under suspension after a secret inquiry headed by DIG Jammu Farooq Khan pointed out tampering with evidence in the murder case by changing the weapon of offence. Another inquiry has been instituted through a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and it is also learnt that the Additional Director General of Police (CID) K Rajendra is looking into the case of tampering with evidence. It is only after the conclusion of these inquiries that the real truth will come out –as who exactly among the five officers was responsible for this most reprehensible act, whether all of them were in a league, what amount of money changed hands in the process etc. However, as of now, prima facie, there is a case against all six officers and this has certainly brought a bad reputation to the Police and badly lowered the public trust in this institution of ‘Khaki’. In our view the tampering with evidence, with an aim to ensure acquittal of the accused, is a far more serious crime than the murder itself. There are no doubts about the fact that the Police image has suffered a severe beating. However, at the same time it needs to be understood that all is not that gloomy with the Police as it has appeared in present case and many cases of the similar nature in past also. If six cops have been accused of tampering with evidence, thus lowering the public trust in Police, the very truth has been brought public by another group of the same Police force. That a group of Police officers headed by DIG Farooq Khan and monitored by IGP Jammu Ashok Gupta refused to become a part of the racket and instead took the veil off the serious crime allegedly committed by some officers, this renews the public trust in institution of Police. The fact that the mother of victim of Amandeep Singh, Deepender Kaur, a former Member of the Legislative Council, has temporarily forgotten the personal tragedy and irreparable loss to feel happy at the unearthing of evidence tampering racket reflects the renewal of a high degree of public trust in the Police. Now the inquiry report will only uncover the black sheep in the Police and not necessarily isolate the Police as an institution of furthering such crimes. There are many cases from the past. The digging of unnamed graves and fake encounter killing of a carpenter from Kokernag allegedly by an SP who was posted at Ganderbal had in early 2006 broke the Kashmir Valley out in violent protests. But around same days there were loud slogans heard in favour of other Police officers who uncovered the case and saw the accused going to jails. Blaming a whole institution for the wrongdoings of a few black-sheep will not help instead hands should be joined to isolate the black-sheep before cause damage to the institute and the public trust.
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