Friday, Mar 29th 2024
Trending News

Delhi Police must answer for derection of duty: Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative

By FnF Correspondent | PUBLISHED: 23, Apr 2013, 19:00 pm IST | UPDATED: 24, Apr 2013, 13:48 pm IST

Delhi Police must answer for derection of duty: Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative New Delhi: The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) expresses serious concern at the continuing lack of response to victims of rape by the Delhi Police, evidenced in the handling of the kidnapping and rape of the five year old girl in Gandhi Nagar, Delhi. CHRI calls on the administration to hold the police chief responsible and ensure immediate and strict action against the errant police officers. 

According to media reports, the victim’s parents went to file a complaint of their daughter as missing within a few hours of her not coming home. In these circumstances, the police were bound to file the complaint. It is mandatory for police stations, across the country, to compulsorily register missing complaints of any minor, and appoint a special police officer to handle these complaints. These special police officers should be stationed at every police station in plain clothes.

Instead, the police did not register a missing person’s complaint, nor did they take any preliminary steps to ascertain the whereabouts of the child. They simply drove the distraught parents away. If they had taken preliminary steps and at least began by searching the building where the child was last seen, it may have prevented the aggravated crime against the child. The child spent close to 48 hours alone, trapped, traumatized, seriously injured, and without food or water. It is only due to the young victim’s sheer strength and fortitude that she was found.

Once found, allegations indicate that the police were unwilling to register a complaint of rape, and attempted to dissuade the parents from going to the media with offers of money, in the guise of helping with expenses.

The new Criminal Law Amendment Act 2013 has a provision (s166A) to sentence for two years police officers refusing to file a complaint of rape. Credible allegations of such conduct require that criminal proceedings be immediately launched against the Station House and Investigating officers. Lapses in the supervisory officer’s role must also be looked into through a departmental inquiry. Another accountability channel is the Delhi Police Complaints Authority which can play its part by taking suo moto notice of these violations.  

CHRI’s Director, Maja Daruwala urges “the Delhi Police and government to punish both acts of omission and commission to the fullest extent of the law, without seeking to shield the officers or minimize the gravity of dereliction of duty”.

Institutional response cannot be limited to disciplinary measures marked by long, closed inquiries. Beyond the arrest of culpable officers command responsibility must flow from the Assistant Commissioner, to the Commissioner and also to the Delhi State Security Commission on which the highest political leadership sits along with the police.  Only these can be the first real steps in responding to the serious public anger against police behavior that is playing out on the streets.  

Changes in law brought about after the December 16th rape have little meaning if the police continue to defeat justice through their embedded subversive practices The police chief has accepted there was ‘poor response’ to the plight of a 5 year old. This happened under his watch. It is clear the present leadership has failed to improve police response in the months between December and April. The police leadership must be made to know it will be held responsible for grave acts of omission and commission by subordinates who they are in charge of. Without this we can be sure that tragedies will continue to multiply and the public will remain unsafe and without remedy or recourse because of bad policing.