| Calcutta, Jan. 25: Calcutta police proved last night that their credentials are impeccable: the force suspects everyone and trusts no one — not even a person who has been shot at and whose wound is spouting blood. The city police displayed the dispassionate efficiency yesterday when officers insisted for four hours that the lady who took a bullet in Kasba while fighting off bike-borne chain-snatchers had suffered "bruises from a fall". The police needed a CT scan report last night to confirm whether Vidya Desai had been shot at, though the bleeding Kasba homemaker had by then narrated the attack on her and an X-ray had confirmed a metallic foreign body inside her abdomen. (See Metro) The force can't be accused of committing any wrong by being extra cautious but the lukewarm response gave an impression that law-enforcement was initially treating the crime like any other incident instead of activating the full resources at its command. Such a perception gained ground today as no one had been arrested 24 hours into one of the most audacious attacks in a residential neighbourhood in recent memory. The CT scan report came around 9.30pm, almost five hours after Vidya had been fired at by a gang of snatchers in front of her daughters on the crowded R.K. Chatterjee Road. "We had to wait for the doctors' confirmation. They are the experts," joint commissioner of police Damayanti Sen said at Lalbazar this evening. The police had recovered a spent cartridge and two live bullets from the scene of crime almost immediately after the incident but even that was apparently not enough for Calcutta police to accept Vidya's version of the incident. Around 7.30 last evening — almost three hours after the bullets had been recovered and over an hour after the victim had given a formal statement — deputy commissioner (south suburban) Biswarup Ghosh had told this paper: "An incident of snatching has occurred. When the snatcher was trying to escape, the victim had tried to resist. She was pushed back. There was a rumour of firing." "Mone hochchhe, pore giye chhore gechhe (It appears that she received a bruise from a fall). The hospital has already treated and discharged the patient," Ghosh had added. If "suspect everyone" is the hallmark of a professional force, not wasting the initial hours — the most crucial for investigators — is another golden rule. Officers past and present wondered how a police force could start a probe in earnest if it spends hours in denial mode after a crime. When The Telegraph called the DC again around 10.15pm, by when medical reports had confirmed the presence of the bullet inside, he said: "The neighbours are claiming there was firing, but we have no evidence of that. Our men are still investigating." Officers at the Kasba (Wednesday's report had mistakenly mentioned the area was under Jadavpur) police station said they had started the probe even before the confirmation on the shooting arrived. "It is shocking to hear that a divisional deputy commissioner doesn't know about a firing incident in his division, even three-four hours after the firing. We cannot expect much from the other officers of the division or police station," said a retired police officer. "The police should ideally have ready intelligence to identify a gang from its area of operation and mode of operation," he added. Sources in the police confirmed that they had come to know about the "firing" within an hour of the incident. The question then is why the officers were claiming ignorance or waiting for doctors' confirmation. A police insider said the cops could have conveniently denied the firing had the bullet missed the woman. "Statements by local people that they had seen the police pick up the shells and the bullets could have been rubbished as rumour-mongering had the woman not been hit. Minus the firing, it is a simple case of snatching and would have died a natural death as one of the many unsolved cases," said an officer. Some of the friends of the Desais also suggested that the police could have been more humane when they were struggling with the official paraphernalia at the hospital. "They (the officers) vanished after recording her statement. We didn't get any police help when it came to moving her to the Calcutta Heart Research Centre for the CT scan or completing all the formalities," said Sushmita Chakraborty, a neighbour who was constantly with Vidya's husband Rama Rao Desai on Tuesday. The police had reappeared only after 10.30pm. The police threw the rule book at this charge. There is nothing in it that says the police should be "by the victim's side" in his hour of crisis. "A lot of official work has to be done once an incident occurs. Recording the statement is just one part of it," said an officer. "If officers always sit by the victim's side, who will catch the culprit?" asked the officer. But where is the culprit? "We have prepared the sketches of the youths. They are yet to be identified," said an officer of the Kasba police station. On March 28, 2011, commissioner R.K. Pachnanda had written in the force's official blog: "The safety, security and convenience of the people comes first, always and every time and our own comfort comes last, always and every time." "We had lot of expectations from the police after our station was taken over by Calcutta police. But this incident has proved that there has not been any change in reality," said a resident of nearby Bosepukur. Officers at Lalbazar said the detective department had launched a parallel investigation along with the local police station. | 
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment