I’ve been seeing videos of policemen thrashing men and women venturing out of their homes during curfew, beating them mercilessly with their lathis, and under the forward of one such video was a comment from the sender, “I support the police for this action!”
I wanted to send a rejoinder but decided I wouldn’t get into an argument with fear of the virus taking logic out of our minds.
And then I got this piece of news on TV, that 15,000 litres of milk and 10,000 kg of vegetables were dumped as police beat up e commerce vehicle drivers and cleaners who are delivering essential items like groceries, medicines, and food to cities. These men carrying supplies are facing attack from law enforcement officials!
Must have been a severe thrashing for commodities of this proportion to be dumped, right?
But, that is what happens when we give license to brutality. The lathi cannot differentiate between what is right and what isn’t.
The courts do, and whatever the situation, we have to allow the law to be enforced by the legal system. In Mumbai, breakers of the curfew and even some students playing cricket in a housing colony were arrested and taken to the police station.
They were not beaten up like criminals.
I remember the long trial of the terrorist Kasab. Like everyone else, I was sick and tired of the long wait to see the man hang. It was a lawyer who explained to me, that even the worst offender of the law, had to get a fair trial.
Like it or not, coronavirus or not, we are a democracy and have to follow the system, otherwise we will pay for it as the khaki clad guardians of the law get trigger happy and lathi charged, and take law into their own hands!
And it won’t end there.
It might end in your own backyard when you hear your son or husband, going out to get supplies or medicines was thrashed by the cops.
Yes, there is fear of the virus, and drastic steps have been taken on an unprecedented scale, but nowhere should we lose the rights and freedom which we have fought to get!
And if you don’t agree with me wait for the lathi to strike you from behind as you sit pillion on the back of your friend’s motorbike, when he inadvertently rode past a red light, and as you fall off writhing in pain you’ll know when it all started.
It started when you remained silent..!
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Read…
DARE by Robert Clements.
It will change your life.
Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and writes a daily column, which has graced the pages of over 60 newspapers and magazines, from a daily column in the Khaleej Times, Dubai, the Morning Star, London, and in nearly every state in India, from The Statesman in Kolkata, to the Kashmir Times in Kashmir to the Trinity Mirror in Chennai.
Good judgment Bob! Always stand for the right as you always do. God save us! Should let them know, who takes the law in their own hand that they may even lose their job if not careful… GBU.
Not all in khaki are brutal. Most of the times these guys get carried away with the power they yield. And then also consider the stress they work under. These are troubled times. Let’s wait and see it off peacefully.
Police can enforce law, but not physically assault women and men. Police is abusing the Citizen even before verifying the identity or documents. See the arrogance of Police staff and the lathi charge on human beings, we are not saying the person cannot be arrested, but no physical assault. Police Training and understanding directives is the need of the hour. No Citizen would like to challenge the law to get physically assaulted. Curfew relaxations are to be understood by both. No blood bath.
Silence is no option for a just society. Imagine if MK Gandhi thought ‘silence is golden’…
Earlier after the terrorist strikes in .Mumbai in 2008,the police looked after the people and were protective of Indian citizens,now under the new regime, they too have lost their minds like the rulers and creating havoc on the common man! All brainwashed!