The incidence of extremist offences in the state this year is the lowest in the last 30 years. The police can justly take credit for the turnaround in the situation. It is the cops who have fought the extremists over three decades at the cost of their lives and the safety of their families, when every other institution of the state cowered: the media bought peace, civil society was outraged but could not muster courage to protest and business and industry paid a price for their legitimate activity. The police has also handled the Telangana agitation with great restraint in the face of grave provocations — any excess on their part would have made the situation worse — and resisted vile attempts to divide them on regional lines. We must also give credit to the police for intervening in right time to check drug-peddling in a big way in the twin-cities. All this is good news. But the good news seems to end there!

Over the last few years, police administration has taken a beating. The senior officers seem to have lost grip and have allowed the vast subordinate setup to drift. They could not resist the nefarious practice of the ruling party functionaries choosing police officers for their areas leading to a police-politician nexus. In a way, this seems to derive from the bad example set by ambitious senior officers offering their services and loyalty to those in power to secure offices of their choice compromising the oath they have taken to uphold the rule of law. In choosing the head of the police force (HOPF), the government has come to weigh loyalty more than suitability or competence!

On more than one occasion, the appointment of the HOPF has been challenged in the High Court and even now, at least four cases are pending disposal. All this has taken a toll of the neutral image of the police. Also, the blessings of those in power have given the subordinate officers enough clout to demand a price for their services! No wonder all mafia — sand mafia to land mafia — thrive with the blessings of the politician and the police. The land mafia around all our big cities and towns these days criminalise all civil disputes through the ploy of court-referred cases and enlist the support of the local police to resolve them and share the spoils. Not infrequently, media silence is also bought! Not surprisingly, the recently unearthed Excise scam clearly exposes the police-politician nexus in addition to the enormous corruption in the Excise department.

The power to arrest continues to be the bread and butter of the corrupt police officer. In offences involving civil rights, women and marital discord, arrest precedes investigation in a reversal of the natural sequence. The police and the people have come to suffer the humiliation thinking that the stringent laws governing these offences prescribe it. No, they do not prescribe arrests, though they do not also bar them. Our police officers are yet to realise that responsible policing implies respecting people's rights. Though by now the police know that a vast majority of these cases are either outright false or grossly exaggerated, it is not uncommon that people are still harassed on the basis of these cases. The richer the man facing arrest, the bigger the bribe for his liberty. It is, therefore, not uncommon that a rich man is often picked up on a Friday evening so that he can be detained through the weekend or set free for a handsome price.

Moral policing is an area in which our urban police forces have been taking undue interest. They do not seem to discriminate between genuine social activity like a game of cards in a respectable club and gambling for money-making in a private club. Both are interpreted as gambling and the police periodically impose blanket prohibitory orders, not realising that they have only powers of regulation and not prohibition. No effort is made to revise the gaming law to clearly distinguish a place of recreation from a gambling den. The grey areas are allowed to continue as they are so they can be encashed! It took a couple of suicides for the police top-brass to realise that big time gambling was taking place in the city, though it is common knowledge that these private clubs thrive with the blessings of the local police and postings to the police stations of the area are in great demand for that very reason!

Our state has the dubious distinction of recording the highest number of accidents on our highways. Most of these accidents take place on the highways as our rural population is still not used to the expressway culture and often drive their two wheelers and tractors in the wrong direction. The highway patrols do very little to educate them. It took a few accidents involving the sons of film or cricket stars or politicians to wake up our police top brass to think of remedial measures. The traffic police seem to be too occupied with compounding petty traffic offences to bother about safety on the highways. The traffic police seems to lose the goodwill of the road user in their enthusiasm to gather revenues for themselves and the government; they are not even embarrassed to publicise their revenue-gathering muscle!

The common people, however, seem to feel that it is time the compounding powers are withdrawn from the police and restored to the courts in view of the rampant misuse and harassment of the already hassled road users. In the New Year, the police will do well to concentrate on the less glamorous but the more important functions of investigation, bring to book big time crook like Bhanu, conserve their resources for public service rather than squander them on the security of all and sundry, help revise the dated laws and respect the people’s rights. Above all, they need a people-friendly face and the present practice of a politician or a senior officer putting in a word before one goes to a police station for help shall soon be a thing of the past!

The writer is a former Indian Police Service officer.

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2011 CRIME
January 3
Suri, alias Gangula Suryanarayana Reddy, the factionist leader was shot dead by one of his closest lieutenants in a car at Hyderabad.

January 31
In the biggest incident of its kind, prisoners jailed in terror and mafia cases attacked jail staffers in the high-security Papagni block of the Cherlapally Central Prison.

February 19
Senior BJP Mahila Morcha leader and spokesperson Vanam Jhansi was killed when the car in which she was traveling was hit by an MUV at Amangal mandal in Mahbubnagar.

March 27
Former top Maoist leader and TRS politburo member K. Sambasivudu was hacked to death by
unidentified attackers in Nalgonda district.

April 30
Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi, was attacked by 10 men armed with pistols and knives near the Barkas MIM office in Hyderabad.

June 18
An unsuspecting Kiran Reddy, niece of Union minister S. Jaipal Reddy, was murdered by her husband Dr S. Chaitanya Reddy in a fit of rage after an argument over his behaviour at a party.

June 24
Tollywood producer Singanamala Ramesh Babu, who allegedly used his links with gangsters Suri and Bhanu Kiran to browbeat film-makers and financiers, was arrested amidst much drama by the state CID personnel.

August 25
Eight persons were sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment for the murder of TD MLA Paritala Ravindra. Five others were acquitted.

September 25
The Jubilee Hills police picked up three constables S. Mahesh Kumar (PC No.3851), G. Mahesh Yadav (PC No. 3448) and Nagesh Goud (PC No. 9355), attached to the Shah Ali Banda, Sultan Bazaar and CCS police stations respectively for threatening and extorting about `12 lakh from a businessman by identifying themselves as crime branch cops.

November 2
AP State Human Rights commission directed ACP and DEO to inquire into the alleged attack on a Class VIII boy Sai Pranav Reddy by his teacher Sudhakar at the Bhashyam Public School in Attapur, Hyderabad.

November 8
The Chaderghat police rescued a new-born baby from a kidnapper. Mahbubia, 24, had given birth to a baby boy on Saturday at Malakpet Area Hospital. However, the new born was kidnapped by a burqa-clad woman in the evening.

November 14
Hyderabad city police raided the Green Villa Resort on the outskirts of the city and detained 19 women and 31 men. Obscene dances were being performed.

November 24
Communist Party of India (Maoist) Politburo member Koteshwar Rao, alias Kishenji, who has been spearheading Maoist operations in West Bengal’s Jangalmahal region, was killed in an encounter in the Burisole forest area in Paschim Medinipur district.

November 25
Ashok Vallabhaneni, Telugu film producer, along with 9 others was arrested for illegally grabbing two flats in a newly constructed building in Yellareddyguda in Jai Prakashnagar, Hyderabad.

November 27
Sasirekha, 35, approached the State Human Rights Commission seeking action against the management of a private residential Sharada Balakuteer school, Ongole, for the mysterious death of her 14-year-old son, Naveen Naidu in the School Hostel.

December 2
Nandhini, a Class III student of government school lost vision in one of her eyes after she was thrashed by her teacher Sivamma for not performing well in the exam at Vemuletipalli of Anantapur district.

December 17
The state-wide raids by ACB sleuths on liquor syndicate members unearthed the nexus between liquor mafia, politicians and journalists.

December 21
Illegal quarrying of sand in the state’s rivers and rivulets is `10,000 crore business.

December 22
A senior scientist, M. Narayana Reddy, who was working at the NAARM was brutally murdered by unidentified persons who slit his throat in Karmanghat, under Saroornagar police station limits.