Special operation in for review

The fanfare that marked its commencement has not quite been matched by the small number of criminals the members of the special force could arrest.

For some inexplicable reasons, the law enforcers started the operation on the same strident note that allowed many listed criminals to move out of their reach when similar anti-crime drives were launched in the past. The publicity coupled with political hype left little room for the caution and secrecy that had to be maintained to catch the criminals unawares. It was surely not the best way to chase the hardened criminals.

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The advantage of intensifying the pressure on the outlaws by mobilising a huge team of law enforcers at a time is that it had the potential extra strength to deal with criminals, particularly the organised political extremists. But there are also disadvantages, which cannot be overlooked. Such operations usually leave other major areas of criminal activities unattended, or not well attended, at least temporarily. Then the time, energy and money spent on such operations might be wasted if they are called off at the halfway stage. The special drives have to be successful for psychological reasons as well because any failure will be a certain morale booster for the criminals.

If the law enforcers had the list of godfathers and other criminals with them, it is not clear why they did not act on the basis of it beforehand. A highly dramatised special drive was not needed to arrest the criminals.

The lesson to be learned from the Spider Web loosening up before it could enmesh the criminals is that we will have to rely on the police round the year for reining them in, leaving the options of deploying special crack forces for very few occasions.

A big investment is needed for modernising the police so that they can attain the desired level of efficiency. We are in a race with time to build up such a police force. Let it be done in a time-bound fashion.