In May 1993 a secret murder squad of the Punjab police raided Tiljala, a Calcutta suburb, and killed a Sikh couple in cold blood. The matter went to the Indian Supreme Court which ordered an enquiry by the Indian C.B,I. The latter recommended action against an S.P. of Punjab police and four other officials. Authorities of any democratic country would have pledged to vigorously take up prosecution of guilty officers. But not so in the world’s “largest democracy.” Punjab chief minister Beant Singh declared that the state government would meet all expenses for defending the police officers responsible for the Tiljala murders, The Indian Supreme Court has professed pain at the chief minister’s stance. Chief Justice Ahmedi’s remarks are worth reproducing. “What are you coming to, in this country! The rule of law is the bedrock of democracy. He wants to defend at the cost of public money the police officials found prima facie guilty of such a heinous crime.” When the Punjab government advocate R.S, Suri said, “It is sad. I will convey the feelings of this court,” the chief justice remarked: “‘No use, no purpose will be served. You do what you like!” Such helplessness on the part of judiciary in any democracy is; indeed, stunning.
Beant Singh is not alone in defending heinous crimes. The same is true of the chief minister of the neighboring Haryana state. The Supreme Court had convicted an S.P., Anil Dawra, and two other police officials a few months ago on grounds of abduction of an employee of a firm with which Bhajan Lal’s son-in-law had a civil dispute and for filing a false affidavit in the court. The officials were not only prematurely released giving them the jail term remission but were reinstated in service of the Haryana government. Ordinary mortals are suspended, even removed, from service even if they spend 48 hours in the police custody, They are reinstated in service only if they win the cases in courts. But a different yardstick was applied to the police officials guilty of abduction and falsehood. Beant, Bhajan and their godfather, Narasimha Rao himself are all a party to the game of crime in India. Not long ago, D.R. Bhatti, an Indian police service officer, along with 16 district police chiefs of Punjab, had asked the chief minister why some of their colleagues should bear the brunt of supreme court directed prosecution in the Tiljala case when the murders took place in accordance with a policy that had been okayed by the prime minister himself. Beant Singh and Bhaian Lal both had later met with Rao to discuss the matter. According to Indian media reports. Rao had expressed his “sympathy” towards the guilty officials. The prime minister, by expressing his sympathy and by never denying the media reports confirmed his own involvement in the comes. Where the prime minister of a country (Rao is no exception) is involved in criminal activity, that country cannot but produce Sushil Sharmas. The case pertaining to Sharma is being prominently featured in India’s media these days. The B.J.P. has threatened to make the politics crime nexus as an electoral issue in the ensuing poll. But the BJP dare not raise the Congress (I) prime minister’s involvement in the cases of murders of Sikhs. In the first instance, the anti-Sikh crimes sponsored by the Indian state have the BJP’s suppom. Secondly, the BJP itself is involved in the crimes against Muslims in the riots engineered by it or by members of the Sangh family. The fact is that the Indian state as a whole, including its major political parties (exceptions apart) are involved in one or the other sort of crimes. The Indian state’s characteristics are more akin to Hitlerite Germany than to the democratic USA, France or even modem Germany. It is a state where even the highest judicial authorities are increasingly helpless and are left to wonder: “Do, whatever you like.”
Article extracted from this publication >> July 21, 1995
