Editorial
Police as Toll Collectors?
NEWSPAPER reports have front-paged reports awash with details of policemen going on an 'Eid bonus collection' spree virtually beating the professional extortionists in their own game. In terms of scale, ingenuity and blatancy they also appear to have surpassed their own records. It is not merely the traffic constables or sergeants who are tainted by allegations as before, even the thana and outpost policemen seem to have joined the fray to mop up extra money at the commercially viable or vulnerable points of the city. Anything moving with merchandise - trucks of different sizes and mechanised or manually-driven vans - are targets of their lusty attention. It is understood from some reports that new checkposts have been set up with the festival-related spurt in the movement of goods in mind to make hay when the sun shines. Their modus operandi is too well known to be repeated; suffice it to say though that in lieu of the toll collected from the vehicle operators, the police people hand in a token or a pass which give the former a guarantee against any second time collection - for the day or for that particular consignment. The issuance of so-called police passes for the right to free movement has serious implications. Not only will overloading or speeding be overlooked what is more dangerous is the turning of a blind eye to registration, driving licence or route permit flaws, let alone checking for the pollution level. Even contraband could get into the city or out of it as a result of the law enforcement slack induced by the palm-greasing. The spoil system has also taken a new spin, quite menacingly at that. It is reported that at places some cops are picking up a lad or two and assigning them to collect toll money from passing vehicles, mechanised or otherwise, with goods in them. These boys are being virtually apprenticed in the ways of corruption while it is getting ingrained in their mind that maybe that is what the police role is all about! This breed of policemen have not merely been concentrating on the truckers they are also wistfully eyeing on the bus terminals, beauty parlours, gambling joints, smuggling dens and drug dealing circuits to milch. The net result is that the policemen are getting deflected from their real duties while corruption and criminality are being promoted by those persons who ought to be stemming them.
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