An Experience With The Indian Police

It is not something that we fantasize in our daily lives or that we work towards having an encounter with police. However, recently we were forced into a situation to deal with police and I must say that the experience was extremely positive and fruitful. This blog is to salute the hard word that the police do in-spite of one of the most difficult jobs that they have got in the country.

Few days ago, my wife lost something valuable. It is first time that she actually lost something and that made her really upset in addition to the fact that lost item was decently expensive. When she realized that she has lost that item, she asked around in trying to desperately recover. Luckily, our driver had found that item and poor chap he is; he gave it to another driver in our society. When we asked that driver, he said he had kept it somewhere in our society but it was nowhere to be found. We used stern language and gave him warning that he must find it.

Couple of more days passed by and someone suggested that an FIR should be registered with the police and let them have a crack at it. So, my wife went to the local police station and filed an FIR. They promised to visit our campus for inquiry in couple of days. Few more days passed by but there was no sign of police. My wife was very persistent and she visited police station everyday for the next 5 days.

Finally, late morning on one fine day, team of 5 arrived from the local police station. They had asked for list of people who work in these building which was ready. They started inquiring in their own unique style, a style which makes it clear that they are authority for what will happen next and no one should interfere with their investigation. 

The obvious suspects from their point of view were our driver and the other driver who agreed that he had taken it from our driver and kept it somewhere. So, Cops started using their unique technics as they asked questions to both the drivers. I believe they figured out in first 5 minutes that they are very likely to find the lost item.

We were feeling bad for our driver because we were dead sure that he was absolutely innocent and didn’t want him to undergo police technics. We spoke with police and told them that we feel confident that our driver has no hand in this. They assured us that they will keep that in mind and asked us to let them do their job, their way or take the case back. We reluctantly agreed to let them take our driver and the other driver to the police station for further inquiry.

In the afternoon, my friend Mak and I went to the station casually to see if they had made any progress. To our surprise, one of the investigators asked us to come back at 5.00PM on that day. When we insisted, he said ‘even ghosts come down from the tree, says the truth and goes back up in our police station’. Not knowing what to make of it – we left to come back at 5.00PM. 

When we went back at 5.00PM – we were told that they have found out lost treasure, which was absolutely pleasant news. Then, we all lightened up a lot, spoke a lot about how their duties are 24 x 7, how they keep working relentlessly, how they miss their children’s growing up process and how they always get crushed between various politicians.

After taking my statement – they handed us our lost item. We had some fun moments, took picture and off we came home. We celebrated that evening but kept wondering that they would have moved on to another case and life just moves on.

My take after this encounter with the cops:

• Their job is filled with absolute hard work, long hours and lots of risks.
• They have skills – they knew in first 5 minutes that the other driver was lying and knew they would recover. They told us that they are fairy confident about getting our item back. They had to apply different technics but mostly, strategy and mind games.
• They did agree that lot of credit would go to my wife for her persistence to come to the station every day and ask status and when they would be coming for the investigation.
• They spoke with lots of worker bees in our society to understand what had happened.
• They had to deal with mob at the police station because the other person had called ‘help’. It is not easy these days to deal with such situations because respect of police and feeling that you can get away with anything is too much in our society.

Finally, I felt that our cops are extremely powerful if they are allowed to use the power without political interference.

I have to say – as much skeptical I was dealing with the whole situation, it turned out that they can be friendly where needed and do take actions when needed.

A big salute to all the hard work, risk and compromises they make to perform their duties.

Comments

[Ravi]

Just one suggestion, name the station and policemen so they get the credit, if they have no objection that is. Their organization portrayal is mostly negative in society and some individual credit needs to go for a job well done.

[Kedar]

Hi Mahesh, I appreciate you taking the time out to articulate your experience in this situation. It is indeed very heartening to see the light at the end of the tunnel and kudos to Deepali and yourself for the persistence.