Sobering move: Why over 600 cops in Assam could be forced to retire ‘voluntarily’

On July 28, 2022, Paisringdao Jorasa was on his bike passing by the Dalmia Cement factory in the industrial town of Umrangso in Assam’s Dima Hasao district, when he realised a stone whizzed past him, missing him by a whisker.

Jorasa, a junior manager at the Assam Electricity Grid Corporation Limited, applied the brakes and looked in the direction from which the stone was hurled at him. To his shock, he found a policeman, who was later identified as Dhaneswar Ray, standing there. As Jorasa looked around, it didn’t take time for him to realise that the intended target of the stone was a dog that the cop was probably trying to shoo away.

Jorasa, who had by now regained his composure, told the police personnel to be careful as the stone could have injured him, make him fall off the bike and led to a serious accident.

The hapless man was not prepared for what followed. Ray was in no time joined by eight other police personnel who started beating him with hands, legs and blunt objects, hurling choicest abuses and screaming, “Who are you, don’t you know we are from the police, don’t try to act smart in front of us.”