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| Taking a cue from Rathore-case, PHQ ought to punish J-K "sexy" cops | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Dec 25: There are some Rathore-like police officers in J&K too. The Need of the hour is to reopen the "hushed up" cases against them and take them to the logical conclusion.
Though the Rathore issue has acquired the centrestage in the country, in J&K, the cases of alleged sexual harassment of several women, including some lady cops, by some police officers never took the centrestage till people became violent and held protests and demonstrations.
S.P.S Rathore, who retired as Haryana Super Cop, had molested 14-year-old budding tennis player Ruchika in 1990 and then created circumstances that drove her to commit suicide.
There are several Rathore-like police officers in the state police department against whom probes were either left half-way or dropped.A lady police constable was asked by her commandant, now retired, at Chhanni Himmat-based armed police complex to get intimate with him. The lady cop refused and resisted his advances.When he started harassing her mentally and calling her to his office several times a day for no work, she, with the help of her cop husband, got herself transferred to Dr Farooq Abdullah's residence at Bhatindi where she was deployed at the entry gate.When this correspondent contacted her, she had narrated how her commandant had harassed her sexually.
She later lodged a complaint against the commandant with the then IGP. A "trap" was then laid. As asked by the IGP, she gave a call to the commandant, expressing her willingness to meet him soon at Shastri Nagar.
The woman reached the spot. Her husband and IGP's men watched her from some distance. The commandant too reached there after sometime in his official vehicle. Without knowing that he had been called there as per a plan, he had held the lady cop from her arm trying to convey her the feeling of "closeness". When he compelled her to accompany him, she had fled.
The whole episode was then reported to the IGP, who initiated an inquiry the incident. The commandant, however, did not stop here. When the probe was being conducted, he repeated the same pressure tactics on a lady Inspector of Karan Nagar. She too lodged a written complaint against the commandant.
The lady Inspector told this correspondent that she was mentally so depressed that she had proceeded on leave to avoid meeting him for official works. She said that some lady cops, who were very thick with him, also trapped other lady cops for him. In lieu of it, they were given undue benefits like remaining absent from duty for weeks and using official vehicles for personal works.
There were several other complaints of sexual harassment against the commandant. As the complaints piled up against him, so did his sexual desires. When he retired, all the cases against him were "closed".Another SSP, now a DIG, also used similar pressure tactics against the lady cops posted under him. He would call one of them to his office and then ask her to lift files lying on floor near him. This way, he tried to get friendly with them. Complaints were also made against him by some lady cops.Another senior police officer, who is on deputation to the Centre, also enjoyed the "bad man" reputation among the lady cops. A DIGP, faced with similar complaints, has now retired.A male Inspector, during his tenure as SHO of Billawar Police Station, had developed intimate relations with a woman, who was kept in the lockup for a trivial crime. The woman was later treated in a Kathua hospital for "certain" diseases.
In a cocktail-dinner held at Police Guest House here some time back, a "very" senior police officer had made a near successful attempt to pat the wife of his junior. The couple had left in protest.There are dozens of such cases in Kashmir. Some were proved, but in
many cases the accused went scot free.This was the right time for the police headquarters (PHQ) to initiate departmental inquiries against such police officers followed by
exemplary punishments to them.
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