Why Kerala Police’s cane is breaking the law with impunity - but selectively

For Murugan, December 15, 2010, was an ordinary day. He rode his auto-rickshaw through the day, taking passengers from one part of Thiruvananthapuram to the other. Exhausted with the day’s work and eager to reach home to grab a meal and catch up on sleep before starting off work the next day, Murugan reached the local police station to sign the daily trip details.

Auto drivers in Kerala are required to sign the trip register kept at the local police stations after they finish the day’s rides.

What happened next would change life for Murugan as he knew it. A few police personnel were beating up two young men that night at the police station. Amid the commotion, Murugan learnt that the two had been nabbed for overtaking a police van on their bike. A local Communist Party of India (Marxist) member and a trade union activist, Murugan knew anything but staying silent. He galvanised support against the police personnel who beat up the young men through his political connections and ensured disciplinary action was initiated against the station house officer.

Murugan feared retaliation from the police, but the scale of it was beyond his imagination. A few days after Murugan came out in support of the boys being beaten at the police station, his auto accidentally hit a bicycle. The boy riding the cycle escaped with minor injuries but his family filed a complaint following which Murugan was summoned to the police station. He was now at the receiving end of the same police excesses he had set out to fight. To begin with, the police personnel confiscated his phone.

“They pulled my mundu and I was kept in police lockup. They framed me in a POCSO [Protection of Children from Sexual Offences] case and I was produced before the magistrate the next day. I was remanded for seven days,” Murugan told The Federal.

Once Murugan managed to get bail, he held a press conference and told the media about his ordeal. Within three days, Murugan was again booked in another POCSO case. This time, Murugan had no clue who the complainant was. The case wreaked havoc on Murugan’s family. With Murugan in jail, his wife and daughter were ostracised and compelled to leave their rented house. Believing the allegations, Murugan’s family left his side.

Out of jail after five months, Murugan had no place to live and no one to support him. He tried to spend nights in temples and at bus stations, but was subjected to insults and taunts for being a ‘habitual POCSO offender’. “I used to catch KSRTC bus to Nagercoil and back to Thiruvananthapuram overnight and slept in the bus,” he told The Federal.

It was only when the two boys, Murugan was accused of having sexually harassed, told the court that they never complained against him and that the cases had been fabricated by the police, that Murugan’s family and friends came around realising they had misjudged him.

Ironically, the police personnel who framed Murugan haven’t been booked till date.

“When I become an accused in two POCSO cases, I was expelled from the party, no action has been taken so far in my complaints against the cops,” Murugan said. While the party expelled him, murmurs suggest it was his political affiliation apart from his zeal to stand for what he believes is right that brought trouble for him.

While Murugan was left visibly alone to bear the stigma and prove his innocence, he was part of a larger group of people in Kerala who bear the brunt of the excesses of the 57,000-strong Kerala Police force on a daily basis. Murugan managed to prove his innocence and get acquitted in both the cases, but many others haven’t been so lucky.

Over the last few years, the Left government led by Pinarayi Vijayan has been heavily criticised, even by Left leaders and sympathisers, for the state of policing in Kerala. Crimes being executed by the police are only on the rise despite the Left government being in power for a second consecutive term.

Spate in police excesses

On December 5, this year, chief minister Vijayan informed the Kerala assembly that 828 criminal cases have been registered against police in Kerala since 2016. Around 60 to 65 cases are that of sexual assault/rape committed on women who were either complainants in different cases or were the accused. There are also cases of physical and mental torture, trespassing, causing damage to houses and vehicles of people who are involved in cases either as complainants, accused or witnesses.

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There are 13 cases registered against cops under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act allegedly for abusing a person on the basis of his lower caste identity. There are 64 FIRs registered against police personnel in the state for demanding dowry and torturing wives for the same. Thirteen cases of domestic violence have also been registered against police officers in Kerala according to the data tabled by the chief minister.

The figures stand in contrast to the overall image of Kerala Police.

According to the Indian Police Foundation (IPF) Smart Police Index 2021, Kerala ranked fourth after Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Assam, in having an efficient policing system.
Being a politically vibrant society, Kerala managed to create a responsive policing system. Ordinary people too could fearlessly walk into police stations to get their grievances registered. The image, however, is changing in the face of a spate of incidents of crimes in which cops are involved.

‘Hostile towards Left, soft on right wing’

Even the leaders and members of the ruling CPI(M) are learnt to be quite unhappy with the policing system. It is a widely shared perception within the Left that the police have a hostile attitude towards members of the ruling party. “We do not demand that the members or leaders of the ruling party get any special consideration in police stations, we only demand that we should not be discriminated against and beaten up by cops for being the members of the ruling party,” a local committee secretary of CPI(M) from Kozhikode district told The Federal on the condition of anonymity. He holds the view that while CM Pinarayi Vijayan is performing very well in all areas of governance, he is found lacking in managing the Home Ministry, which he holds himself.

“Unlike in the past, the police are becoming increasingly saffronised,” said a state-level leader of CPI(M). He said that it seems the CM is not getting the right advice and feedback on police performance in the state. Many believe that with Vijayan himself being an authoritarian leader, he likes to have a strong police force. But the ‘strong force; has turned against his party cadres.

“He [the CM] has given a free hand to the police, which would be ideally fine, but it becomes dangerous considering the growing influence of RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] within the police. Unfortunately, CM fails to realise this situation,” he said.

The concern of the CPI(M) leader is shared by many. There is a widely shared concern that the police are going soft on cases in which BJP-RSS members are accused. Former MLA and CPI(M) leader from Kannur, P Jayarajan, has openly critiqued the police for being partisan in cases in which BJP/RSS are involved.

Following a few such alleged incidents in 2016, Jayarajan claimed that the police chief in Kannur is directly taking orders from RSS headquarters. Later in 2017, he openly expressed his displeasure over the then DGP’s decision to include Yoga in the police training syllabus. In a Facebook post, he wrote that the move could be a cover for pushing right wing ideology.

In 2016, a few young film lovers were arrested at the venue of International Film Festival in Kerala for ‘disrespecting the national anthem’. The youth allegedly remained in their seats when the national anthem was played. On the other hand, the police refused to charge the BJP Yuva Morcha activists when they sang the national anthem while remaining seated during a dharna in front of the house of Kamal, renowned film-maker and the then president of the Chalachitra Academy. (Yuva Morcha activists were protesting against Kamal for making a statement in favour of the youngsters who were arrested).

The social media is awash with mentions of incidents in which the police have gone soft on the BJP. For local Left leaders, the trend is hard to explain to the ordinary people supporting them.

Dr J Prabhash, a scholar of political science and former pro vice-chancellor of Kerala University said there are multiple reasons for this ‘saffronisation of the police’.

“Hindutvaisation is happening at all levels of the Kerala society, not only within the police,” says Dr Prabhash.

“The youngsters are largely switching to the right-wing ideology leading to increased Islamophobia. Some of these youngsters, who are being recruited in the police force, strengthen the saffronisation process in the force,” says Dr Prabhash. Most IPS officers deputed in Kerala are from north India and more loyal to the central government and its political ideology, he said.

“With the police being a force functioning under a chain of command, these officers are able to impose their line of thought within the system,” Dr Prabhash told The Federal.
According to Dr Prabhash, the Left in Kerala has failed to provide political education and advocacy to the young generation. “One who is a CPI(M)/Congress supporter can easily switch his loyalty to BJP because of the absence of this political education,” he said.

Torture inside police station

On August 25, Vishnu, an Indian Army personnel, who was in Thiruvananthapuram on leave, and his brother Vignesh, were roughed up by the police at the Kilikolloor police station. Vignesh was reportedly picked up by the police to give a statement in a drugs trafficking case and taken allegedly to the ‘torture room’. Later, Vishnu, who came to the station looking for Vignesh, was beaten and tortured too. Initially, the police claimed it was Vignesh who beat up the police personnel and got injured in retaliatory action. The CCTV footage obtained by media, however, spilled the beans on police’s lies. The footage showed police personnel beating the brothers. Subsequently, the accused police personnel were suspended and an investigation was initiated in the case.

Before the state could come to terms with the incident, the police committed another heinous crime. A 16-year-old girl, a POCSO victim, was sexually assaulted by a police personnel in Wayanadu, shockingly, while being taken to gather evidence in the case.

TG Babu, the assistant sub inspector of police at Ambalawayal police station, accused of the crime, has been booked and suspended from service.

Two days after the incident, another cop was booked in a gang rape case. PR Sunnu, the circle inspector in Kozhikode, allegedly raped a woman who approached him for help in a case of cheating. According to the complaint raised by the woman, she was taken to two locations in Kochi and was gang-raped by a group of seven men including the police officer in May 2022. Sunnu was earlier arrested in an assault case in 2021 and put under suspension for six months. He allegedly committed the second crime of rape while the investigation of the first case was going on.

In August 2022, NG Sreemon, a sub-inspector, who was dismissed from service for having a criminal record of being involved in 18 proven cases, was reinstated in the force on a special order issued by the additional director general of police. There were 30 complaints against the cop, out of which 18 were proven in multiple investigations. He was re-inducted despite Kerala High Court saying ‘his continuation in service will be a threat to the public and to the enforcement of law’.

There are many who hold Vijayan responsible for the criminalisation of the police. “Pinarayi Vijayan is an absolute failure in controlling the police,” said Justice Kamal Pasha, the retired judge of the High Court of Kerala. Pasha went on to say, “The Chief Minister is not trying to take the control of the situation; instead he has given a free hand to some police officers, he is spoiled by his advisers.”

Also read | Dismissed Kerala cop with 18 cases reinstated after ADGP feels offences are ‘minor’

Justice Pasha’s anguish is shared by many in the CPI(M) cadres.

“We are truly disappointed in the way the CM is handling the police. It is unlikely that the party would come to power for one more term. Everything else is going well with this government except policing which is going to be a decisive factor in the next assembly election,” a CPI(M) activist said wanting to remain unidentified.

Modernisation drive

Even as the chief minister presented the grim numbers of police personnel being involved in crimes on December 5, he mentioned the efforts being taken to modernise the police.

The state has set aside a grant of Rs 152.8 crore for the modernisation of the police force for the financial year 2022-23. A project to install 12 CCTV cameras each across the 520 police stations in the state is in progress and likely to be completed by February 2023. These CCTVs will be networked with the district headquarters, from where they will be monitored.

Vijayan also informed the assembly that special training programmes are being conducted in specific areas such as interrogation techniques, cybercrime investigation and using advanced technology in forensic science. Automated Number Plate Recognition cameras (ANPR) will be installed across the 20 police districts. Body-worn cameras, vehicle-mount GPS and digital finger print machines are being made available to the police stations as part of the modernisation programme.

While technological upgradation is a welcome step, it may fail to control criminalisation among the police force.

The reply given to an unstarred question raised by Peravoor MLA Sunny Joseph on the same day in the assembly exposes the reluctance of the government in tackling the problem. The MLA sought to know the details of the serving police personnel with criminal records. The MLA also sought the details of their designations and how many of them are deployed in law and order duty. He asked the number of cases against police in which the investigation had been completed and the details of the cops who are convicted.

To all these questions, the chief minister said. “No such information is available.”