Men in khaki under attack

With a steady rise in crime against police personnel, it seems even the law-keepers are not safe in Delhi. Sunday night’s incident in which a Delhi Police constable became a victim of a road rage incident has once again highlighted the state of lawlessness in the Capital. Karn Pratap Singh reports.

With a steady rise in crime against police personnel, it seems even the law-keepers are not safe in Delhi. Sunday night’s incident in which a Delhi Police constable became a victim of a road rage incident has once again highlighted the state of lawlessness in the Capital.

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This year alone, the capital has witnessed eight incidents in which police personnel on duty were either killed or manhandled by criminals or the public. The worst among these was the gruesome murder of head constable Kailash Chander, who was stabbed as many as 27 times by a gang of four petty criminals in Dwarka. His body was found in a pool of blood at a park on May 5.

Another sensational crime against men in khaki was the murder of Tanvir, a constable posted at Ranhola police station on September 29. Two property dealers shot Tanvir at his single-room accommodation in west Delhi’s Baprolla village. The accused were later arrested.

In Sunday night’s incident, constable Chandra Vijay Singh, 39, was attacked just because he had prevented the two assailants from consuming liquor in their Santro car near Suvidha Market at Netaji Nagar, which falls under his jurisdiction.

It was Singh’s duty to keep anti-social elements at bay. But the assailants decided to kill him for obstructing them. They first rammed their car into Singh’s motorcycle and then dragged him on the road for about 20 feet.

The miscreants did not stop there. They stepped out of their car and started attacking Singh with a hammer. They stopped only after an income tax inspector, Rajesh Sharma, 47, saw them and came to the constable’s rescue.

“Fearing that Sharma and his neighbours might corner them, one of the assailants fired two bullets from his country made pistol. One of the bullets grazed Sharma’s cheek and jaw,” said Chhaya Sharma, DCP (south), adding Sharma will be rewarded suitably for his daring while saving a police personnel on duty.

Asked about the psychological factors behind the new trend of crime against men in khaki, Dr Rajat Mitra, director, Swanchetan, an NGO that works for both victims and perpetrators of crime, said, “The society is undergoing a drastic change in its relations with the police. Now-a-days, people are not ready to accept the police as an institution that should rule over them.”