The city police, which didn’t waste any time in arresting the wife of an IAS officer for allegedly slapping a woman constable at the Chinnaswamy stadium in January this year , looks increasingly helpless in the face of repeated acts of provocation by a section of lawyers, who have chosen to take the law into their own hands.
In an escalation of the stand-off between the two, some men in black coats attacked head constable Basavaraj and woman constable, Roopa of the Halasurugate police station while they were escorting an accused to court on Tuesday, demonstrating that the friction between the two groups, triggered by the act of a police constable stopping an assistant lawyer for a traffic offence on March 2, is far from over.
The story so far…
A fortnight after the March 17 violence involving lawyers, members of the media and the police , two senior police officers, DCP (Central) Ramesh and ACP Jitendra Nath have been transferrred and showcause notices issued to four officers. Meanwhile, an internal inquiry by DGP (CID) Rupak Kumar Dutta, which held the police on duty responsible for improper bundobast, has upset the men in khaki as they feel they are being unfairly blamed by an agency that does not understand the complexities of their job.
Assistant commissioner of police, Devanahalli, Gajenakatti, who had suo motu lodged a complaint against lawyers for the March 17 incident, leading to the filing of an FIR by the Halasurugate police station, has been indicted. But Mr. Gajenakatti has taken preemptive action by filing a PIL in the high court on the issue.
The lawyers have, for their part, filed 170 complaints against the police and the media. A division bench headed by Chief Justice Vikramjit Sen said the high court would decide whether the case merits a CBI investigation or not. Till then justice will have to wait.
Security up, but unease in police ranks
After the latest attack by lawyers, the men in khaki are afraid of going back to the courts but have been assured by senior police officers that there will be no repeat of the incident and anyone who tries to take the law into their hands will be punished. Security has been stepped up at the courts as a deterrent.
Meanwhile, a case has been registered against 20 advocates for Tuesday's attack on policemen and four special teams have been formed to arrest them. One advocate , Manjunath was arrested late Tuesday, but another advocate, Vishwanath allegedly dodged the police and escaped from the backdoor of his home in Vijaynagar, when he saw them coming. “It’s a cat and mouse game. We have information about all their whereabouts and will round them up,” said a senior police officer. The injured policemen have been promised compensation of between Rs.10, 000 and Rs 20,000 and those of them who have suffered permanent injury will receive between Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakhs.