They might as well have spared us this tasteless charade. This apparent outrage is at complete odds with the "thok denge" (we'll bump them off) philosophy of the administration. It is a war cry that has empowered and emboldened thousands of Prashant Chaudharys in all corners of Uttar Pradesh to become trigger-happy hunters in uniform. The swift action against the two constables, deserving though it is, is in reality a set-up to hang individuals for aberrations and absolve the system that thrives on excesses.
There are certain glaring instances of criminality that the Uttar Pradesh government is seeking to cover up in this instance. Constables are neither trained nor authorised to carry the pistols. During their training, they are not familiarised with the operation of the weapon. The question arises: how then do they carry the pistol on their person? The reality of how Prashant Chaudhary would have acquired the weapon will send shivers down your spine.
Such weapons (which are rarely available in the police station’s armoury) are issued to the most favoured constables of the station head. These favoured men then prowl the area and throw their weight around to extort money from the vulnerable and indulge in wanton criminality in the garb of khaki. Interestingly, though none of these constables are trained to handle the weapon, they prefer to carry pistols instead of vintage 303 rifles because it is a status symbol. With a pistol in their belts and Yogi’s “thok denge” dinned into their ears, they genuinely believe that they have license to kill. Ever since the Uttar Pradesh police has launched the latest encounter-spree, they have unleashed thousands of Prashant Chaudharys on citizens of the state. Rest assured Vivek Tiwari is not an aberration in Yogi’s Uttar Pradesh, just about anybody can well end up in the same way.
The moment the state police had launched its “thok denge” drive, I had a premonition for the worst. When the police claimed to have gunned down 18 criminals in encounters and chest-thumping itself in glory, I had cautioned that it would be nothing less than unleashing of a Frankenstein that would come back to bite its creator. But in this age of state-authorised insanity under the regime of a self-righteous chief minister who doubles up as head of a prominent Hindu spiritual seat, caution is meaningless as everything he does is believed be divinely ordained.
Remember the manner in which the police had called the media to record a “live encounter” in which two youths, Mustaqueem and Naushad, were shot dead by the police at Harduagang of Aligarh on 20 September? They were accused of having criminal antecedents by the police to justify their execution in a shockingly extra-judicial manner. It is this brazen legitimisation of violence by the state that is reflected in the cockiness of Prashant Chaudhary.
Will it be right to put the entire blame on Yogi’s doorstep for this malignancy which has criminalised governance in Uttar Pradesh? Obviously not. Yogi is just a sequel to the long story that began in the eighties under VP Singh. He was the first chief minister to give the police a licence to kill in their fight against the legendary dacoit gangs of Chambal. The killing of citizens on the pretext of launching operations against dacoits found legitimacy in the culture of governance. VP Singh’s machismo proved to be his undoing.
His brother was killed by dacoits near Banda forcing him to quit as the chief minister in July 1982.
VP Singh was consumed by the Frankenstein when his brother was killed by dacoits near Banda and he had to step down as chief minister. But the culture of violence that gradually criminalised the state police outlasted him as reflected in the manner in which the state police was involved in mass-killings in Aligarh, Hashimpura, Maliana and Pilibhit — and got away with it. What is particularly baffling is the abject surrender to this culture by successive DGPs in the state whose instinct for survival got the better of their commitment to policing.