BHUBANESWAR: The bizarre incident of the Laikera police shaving off the beards and moustaches of three Sikh thick drivers in its custody, following a brawl with them on July 2, has scandalized the Sikh community in Orissa.
The incident, the first of its kind in the State, has drawn sharp protests from the community, with the Gurdwara Singh Sabha, their representative body, submitting a memorandum to the Chief Minister, demanding stem action against the guilty police officials. The memorandum, submitted more than a week after the incident, described the police act as “barbarous and inhuman,” pointing out that shaving the beard and moustache of a Sikh was tantamount to killing him.
Unable to find a way out of the mess, the Superintendent of Police (SP), IJharsuguda, has suspended Laikera police station Officer in charge and the AST also. Cases have been filed for hurting the religious sentiments of Sikhs in custody and/an explanation has been sought from the constable who called the barber to do the shaving.
I call began with the truck drivers being booked by the police at Dhutra, 10 kms from Jharsuguda town, for wrongly parking their vehicles on a road near a cement factory and blocking the traffic.
When the night patrol party led by Pradhan, the police officer in charge, asked them to move the vehicles back, they entered into an argument and finally attacked the policemen, who were not carrying any weapons.
The cops then fled the scene and took shelter in the security room at the cement factory. Soon, a group of Sikh truck drivers present there beat them up the officer in charge and an ASI sustained injuries in the attack, while other members of the police party managed to escape.
Enraged, Pradhan says he called for reinforcements from the police Station and once the forces arrived, he arrested the three drivers present on the spot, others having left. The three drivers were reportedly beaten up during the night, with one of them sustaining an arm fracture. And the next morning, the police called a local barber and had their beards and moustaches shaved off. ‘Sharsuguda and nearby areas have a sizeable Sikh population. The news of the inhuman treatment meted out to the three drivers spread like wildfire and representatives of the local Sikh community met the SP, Ja Mallick, demanding action against the guilty policeman. It was only then that the senior police officials decided to take action against their men.
The Superintendent of Police said that the agitated Sikhs were filing Cases against the police for offending their religious sentiments. With the police now on the defensive, the bail order of the three drivers has been procured, but the latter still awaits release from Jharsuguda Jail. ‘They would be released as soon as they got set body to stand surety for them. We have asked them to make an appeal to the local Sikh community, the SP said. Surprisingly, even 10 days after the incident, the Home Department is yet to get a detailed report on the incident. Additional Home Secretary PC Patnaik said: ”We have come to know about the incident from the newspapers. Nothing has come so far from the district. It will come in the normal course of time.”
Article extracted from this publication >> July 21, 1995
