Even as the UP government and police duck for cover over their inept and insensitive handling of the Noida outrage, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s meeting with chief ministers and state home ministers on January 2 ended on a discordant note. The CMs, including those credited with good governance, accused the UPA-led government of ‘playing politics’ and circumventing India’s federal spirit by violating List II (state list) in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.

Sadly, even the best of them have never given police reform the remotest thought. Yet the Noida incidents point to the breakdown of policing at each level, and the complete erosion of the police as the basic institution for internal security. The police across the country has been known to avoid registering cases in order to keep the crime rate and their workload low. It is the poor who invariably bear the brunt of their inefficiency and corruption. Starkly, a recent high profile kidnapping in Noida’s posh Sector 15A witnessed unprecedented police mobilisation, while the disappearance of several children over the past two years in Nithari met with police apathy.

The pervasiveness of dereliction of basic duty by the police has recently been revealed during the trials of Priyadarshini Mattoo and Jessica Lall cases. The police were found deficient in taking cognisance of and investigating the case. The cases of recorded custodial crime (death as well as rape) have risen by 50 per cent in the country between 2004 and 2005. The Telgi case has cast its shadow even over the haloed chair of the Mumbai police commissioner. Officers of IG rank are facing trial for heinous crimes like murder. Obviously, the deep rot necessitates comprehensive reforms at every level — although the delivery level deserves the most urgent attention.

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