In the Gurgaon of glitzy malls, a police station in the shadows

Gurgaon, September 24: The ‘computer room’ at the DLF phase-II police station in Gurgaon is the most happening place. Here, a few officers sit huddled on a wooden cot, their backs to two computers, eyes glued to the television that is blaring out a recent Bollywood hit. “This TV was impounded in a dowry case a few months ago. The fridge in the verandah was also impounded in a similar case,” said one of them.

The police station, which has under its jurisdiction the whole of DLF phase II and III, is a two-acre sprawl. It’s a 10-minute drive from Gurgaon’s glitzy ‘Mall Mile’ but as you reach the dreary, brick-red building, you realise the police station has long stopped trying to catch up with the affluence around it. It was upgraded from a police chowki to a police station in January 2007 but the change of status hasn’t done it much good.

A shabby couch in the verandah greets visitors. Towards the left is the record room, whose walls are covered in stacks of peeling record files. The room also serves as the cabin for mohrar Madan Lal and it is here that much of the administrative work—registering complaints and maintaining records—is done. The adjoining grimy passage ends in a T-junction, branching into the computer room and the lock-up. “There is enough space here but we don’t have a maalkhana (store) and so everything is in a mess. We store expensive gifts and jewellery impounded in dowry cases in an iron trunk,” Lal said. An almirah, a couple of cots and a wooden cabinet are scattered in the rooms and the hallway.

The barracks are two damp rooms, with flaking paint and a sea of spider silk adorning the walls. The bare windows light up the rooms during the day. Each of these rooms has three cots thrown in—no bed sheets and the policemen say they bought the mattresses themselves.

The police station has 15 constables, six head constables and a sub-inspector. That isn’t enough for a high-profile station, they say. The station’s records show that most of the complaints here are related to vehicle theft. Till August this year, the station recorded 87 vehicle thefts, the highest for any police station in Gurgaon.

Station Officer Ashok Kumar’s cabin on the other side takes a clean break from this disorder. Sunlight streams in through the bright red curtains that stand out against the monotonous beige of the rest of the police station. A few files and a telephone sit on his glass table. But Kumar is an unhappy officer. “There is complete disorder here. Our staff strength is poor—we need more officers and constables. There is no facility for clean drinking water and we have to contribute towards mess and sanitation expenses,” he said.

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