Loathsome Police Norms

A traffic policeman in New Delhi threw a brickbat at a woman after she refused to pay him a bribe of Rs 200. On being accused of violating traffic norms and being told that she was being fined, she insisted on a receipt for the fine if she had to pay it. That was when the policeman abused her and hit her with a brickbat. The woman, who had two children on her two-wheeler, then picked up a brickbat and hurled it at the policeman’s bike. The policeman then retaliated with another brickbat thrown at her. All this is apparently on a video clip. One cannot think of any country where such means of dealing with people who violate traffic rules are part of the policemen’s manual. Throwing brickbats at women is a way of dealing with people that policemen think up themselves. And yet, it is the same police force that nurses impossible dreams about becoming people-friendly some day—in a land where custodial deaths are not uncommon. The best part of the unfortute incident is that traffic policeman Satish Chandra was arrested and later dismissed summarily on the strength of the video clip referred to. What we would like to know is that if such speedy justice is possible under the laws of the land, why it should take so long to punish policemen who perpetrate heinous crimes like blinding people detained for trial.