The people's police in action : Anatomy of violence

Guernica by Pablo Picasso

 

NK SINGH

A constable said: "The whole day we had been the victims of stone-throwing and many have been injured. Why should we spare the people who stoned us." 

When told that some innocent people, who had nothing to do with the rioting had also been injured, the constable said it was just their bad luck. They should not have been anywhere near the crowds if they wanted to be safe. (The Statesman)

The alleged "cold-blooded murder" of Mr Onkar Singh, a Home Guards Officer, which triggered off the recent disturbances at Shahdara, a trans-Jamuna suburb of Delhi, is an issue before the court, and, therefore, comments will have to wait till the judiciary gives the verdict. 

However, the riots, which paralysed Shahdara for three days (August 19-21), resulting in the loss of public property valued at about Rs 20 lakhs, one human life and some 500 injuries, are a different matter.

Widespread Violence

During these three days, the Shahdara area was the scene of arson, assault and looting. The Grand Trunk Road had to be closed to traffic, and for some time trains could not run between Jamuna Bridge and Shahdara.

The violent crowd burnt two jeeps, two police trucks, two Delhi Transport Corporation buses and one U.P. Roadways bus. Two compartments of a first-class railway bogie and the Railway Control Room at Shahdara were also damaged.

The mob burnt two terminal tax posts and looted Rs 700 from one of the posts. The house of the assistant sub-inspector of police, allegedly involved in the murder of Mr Onkar Singh, was also burnt.

Indiscriminate use of force

The police, when it went into action, were indiscriminate in the use of force; old people, children and women were beaten, and any young man who was caught, was thrashed. 

Houses were broken into, people arrested indiscriminately, tear-gas shells burst by the dozens, a score or more lathi charges made and firing resorted to killing a 12-year-old lad.

For three days the police ran wild, and the area was under the worst form of police raj, nay police julum.

A Ghastly murder

Mr Onkar Singh was allegedly murdered on August 18 last, a few hundred yards away from his house in Balbir Nagar, a trans-Jamuna colony near Shahdara. 

It has been officially confirmed now that the "ghastly murder" of the defenceless young man followed a conspiracy in which some junior policemen of the Shahdara station were involved. 

After a preliminary investigation carried out by the Delhi Crime Branch, a sub-inspector of the Shahdara police and some other policemen have been arrested on a murder charge. 

Four members of a family which lived just on the ground floor of the building in which the victim lived had also been taken into custody for questioning-giving rise to suspicion of Cupid's playing a part in the tragedy.

As it has become pretty clear now, failure to judge the public temper on the part of the law and order maintaining authorities and the subsequent mishandling of the issue by them aggravated the situation.

How the trouble started

The trouble started when on the morning of August 18 a group of people from Balbir Nagar came to complain that Onkar Singh was killed by a police party. They wanted the arrest of the guilty and a magisterial inquiry into the incident. 

Police officials went on putting them off on one pretext or the other until 3.05 p.m. when they finally registered the complaint of Onkar Singh's father. 

During these six hours, the police officials went on to find evidence for the 'police-dacoit' encounter theory. (It was claimed that Onkar Singh was a dacoit and killed in an encounter with the police.)

Late in the evening about 5000 persons gathered outside the police station and put forward four demands: the guilty, the ASI, Bakshish Singh and his associates, should be arrested and a case under Section 302/IPC (murder) should be registered against them; the SHO should be immediately suspended; the CBI should conduct the investigation; and the senior police and district officers should assure the people, that justice would be done.

Public men intervene but fail

Local leaders, representing both the Jana Sangh and the Congress, who entered into long negotiations with the authorities inside the police station for twenty long hours, tried to convince them that it was a case of cold-blooded murder witnessed by scores of people and should be registered as such. 

The crowd waited patiently outside in the hope that the police would see reason. Despite overwhelming evidence that there was no encounter with dacoits, the police officers tried to put them off on one pretext or the other. 

Negotiations went on up to 4.30 a.m. when the local leaders succeeded in persuading the 5:00-strong crowd to disperse.

The next morning Balbir Nagar observed a hartal. A big procession was taken out to the police station condemning police high-handedness and demanding punishment of the guilty persons. 

The procession gheraoed the police station. They were lathi-charged. and tear-gassed. The crowd retaliated by stone-throwing.

Students implicated 

The police then caught hold of a group of students who were watching the scene in front of the police station. They were dragged inside and beaten up. Hearing this, students of the three colleges in the locality came out of their classes, and joined the protesting crowd before the police station, swelling it to 15,000.

Police Atrocities

Thereafter what happened was wholly unworthy of the police in a democratic country. In the battle royal that ensued between the police and the people, both sides used brickbats and sticks. 

The police additionally resorted to repeated bursting of teargas shells. A section of the crowd meanwhile went to the Shahdara railway station and attacked it. The police opened fire injuring several persons including a boy, who died in the hospital the following day. 

Road and rail traffic through. Shahdara was paralysed. Interstate buses stopped plying on the Grand Trunk Road. Delhi Transport buses were diverted. The battle continued for full eight hours.

In the inevitable encounter that followed with the mob, the guardians of law and order seemed to have lost all sense of discipline. Instead of sympathetically understanding the feelings of the people and trying to soothe them by tactful handling, it went completely berserk. 

While fleeing from the angry mob whenever it attacked them, the police exercised their 'bravery' in chasing innocent people who had the misfortune to be passing by or shop-keepers whose shops fell in the line of retreat. Chased by the crowds again and again, the police would charge into the nearest shops wielding their lathis and breaking everything in slight.

 A 60-year-old widow running a pawnshop was injured and the police did not spare even a frail old man drinking his tea quietly in the backyard of another shop. Their crime: mob from the other side was pelting stones at the police. Scooterists and cyclists moving on the main road were suddenly attacked even by the mounted police.

On August 20 about 3,000 people attended the funeral of Onkar Singh. People returning from the funeral stoned police patrols in the area. The police retaliated with lathi charges. A police van was gheraoed. The police burst tear gas shells to "rescue" the van. The ding-dong battle continued for more than an hour.

On August 21 the trouble started when the people of Balbir Nagar blocked the roads. The police sent in force to the area not only sought to remove the roadblocks but in the name of chasing culprits ran amuck in the lane and by lances in the area. 

The 'task force' raided shops and houses, forcibly entered several houses by breaking doors and climbing walls and mercilessly beat up innocent people inside, including women and children. There were quite a few cases of women being dragged out of their baths, beaten up and their ornaments snatched. 

The police let loose a reign of terror in the name of chasing the mischief makers. Workers, rickshaw pullers, milkmen and even some kids were arrested.

The residents of Balbir Nagar complained that the police choose this particular locality for their brutalities because Onkar Singh lived in that area and many of them had seen the murder. 

Shanti Devi of House No. 1439/H-24, who is admitted to the Shahdara hospital with a fractured arm, allegedly caused by police beating, complained that her life was in danger because she had seen the murder of Onkar Singh and had declared her intention to tender evidence before the inquiry.

The riot ended when the police withdraw

Significantly, the riot stopped only when the police were withdrawn on the evening of August 21, conceding the demands of the local people, It is also to be noted that in the three-day trouble, the targets of the people's wrath were only police officials and the magistracy. 

Barring one or two stray incidents in which some newsmen and photographers were involved on August 19, the crowd never attacked anyone else. Political leaders or public men were not harassed. The residents' anger was directed mainly against the policemen. 

While on the one hand, it was praiseworthy of the Government to order a judicial enquiry into the incident, the opposition failed miserably in its task -- both inside the Parliament and outside. Failed, because there was no organised and strong resistance against the police atrocities by any political party. 

Whatever little the Jana Sangh did was more motivated by political considerations than anything else. Inside the Parliament, the 150-member strong opposition failed to muster even 50 members for initiating discussions on an adjournment motion.

Point of view

9 September, 1972