PATNA: "What is illegal in the police raiding a journalist?" an IG of police asked a TV journalist defending Nawada SP Lalan Mohan Prasad and slamming the TOI report, 'Journalist raided after news on SP thumbing nose at judiciary' on February 28. "Nothing," the journalist replied and retorted, "how much it is legal for SP Prasad to sit on a non-bailable warrant of arrest against a sub-inspector and allow him to run a police station?" The IG did not have an answer.
There's another question: If all was well, why did Bihar Human Rights Commission chairman issue notices to the state DGP and the Nawada SP to explain the Nawada police's conduct? The rights panel chief S N Jha is a retired justice who certainly knows legalities and illegalities better than most of us.
Justice Jha's move apart, does any citizen - powerful or powerless - have the right to defy an order passed by a court of law? If a person who is under oath to uphold the rule of law and orders passed by courts of law chooses to do the opposite, it is bound to excite the people and bring a bad name to the society and state in which we live.
It all began not because of the raid on a journalist but because Nawada assistant public prosecutor (APP) Mehboob Alam was arrested by a sub-inspector in July last year. The man in black coat had gone to lodge an FIR following alleged assault on an imam by anti-social elements. He was paraded in the court with a rope tied around his waist the next day, he alleged in a complaint petition to the Nawada CJM. This shows how much respect the Nawada police have for human rights.
This happened with an APP, who is part of the police system and who pleads cases in courts on behalf of the police. If the Nawada police could do this to a government lawyer, the common man's fate can be well imagined.
This newspaper came to play its role when the lawyer on February 24 threatened to go on hunger strike to press for justice to him. Is it a crime on the part of a newspaper not to look the other way when such brazen violations of human rights take place?
Even if the raid was legal, the timing and the motive raise eyebrows. Why just a day after the news report appeared? Why at 8.30pm when people in villages like Makanpur prepare to sleep after the day's hard work? Had the police got a tip-off that the journalist was packing up to flee from the country? Reams and reams have been written in Patna newspapers against so many officials, including DGP Abhayanand. They didn't order the forces at their disposal to march to the premises of the journalists concerned, did they?
SP spurned offer to send rejoinder
SP Prasad, on the other hand, has ended up trying to put this newspaper under pressure. This despite the fact that every TOI journalist he spoke to after the publication of 'Judge proposes, cop disposes' on February 26 offered him a simple way of redressal of his grievances - a rejoinder which is the normal process of undoing the media's errors, if any, across the world.
As for the media-baiters who argue all journalists are a bunch of morons who misuse their powers to get away with crime, has anyone read any news report in any of the Patna newspapers defending such a journalist? At least I have not - during the last 21 years of my life as a Bihar-based journalist.
Two cops suspended
Nawada SP Lalan Mohan Prasad on Saturday suspended SI Vindhyachal Prasad and ASI Arun Kumar Singh, who were accused in a complaint case related to arrest and assault of an APP, Mehboob Alam. The SP returned here from Patna after three days.
SDPO, Nawada, Sahariyar Akhtar telephonically confirmed the suspension of these two police officials. But the Nawada SP has still failed to execute the non-bailable warrant of arrest issued by the chief judicial magistrate against Vindhyachal Prasad.
Law sacrosanct, let's not take it into our hands
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Law sacrosanct, let's not take it into our hands
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Law sacrosanct, let's not take it into our hands
