Moral or immoral policing?
Mumbai police commissioner Dr Satyapal Singh, speaking to NDTV, pointed out that in 2011 and 2012, only 5 per cent of rape cases registered in the city were by persons unknown to the victim, while 95 per cent rapes were committed by relatives or friends. These included cases of fathers raping their own daughters. “Can any police force in the world stop such crimes?” Dr Singh asked.
The problem, he said, is one of “mental sickness”, of which the rapes were a physical manifestation. Dr Singh went on to say that the “mental sickness” was growing in society and asked whether doctors should be blamed for increase in the number of diabetes cases.
While pointing to several measures that the force has taken for women’s security following the Delhi gangrape of last December, Dr Singh said that the size of the police force in Mumbai is too small for a city with Mumbai’s population.
Mumbai has less than 49,000 police personnel for its 1.8 crore people.
Asked about “moral policing”, commissioner Singh said rhetorically, “Should the police do moral policing or immoral policing?” On the one hand, people want to “encourage this kind of culture”, he said, replying to a question about dancing in pubs and kissing in parks, “while on the other hand you want to stop sexual assaults”. He said that “on the one hand you want a promiscuous culture, on the other hand you want safety for women”, and said that the society needed to work out a balance.
Dr Singh later said that there were “modern youth” in society who wanted freedom of all sorts, but did not want to be harassed by police.
A caller on the show asked whether legalising prostitution might help reduce sex crimes, to which the commissioner said, “Today, you want to legalise prostitution, tomorrow you will want to legalise rape…we have to stop somewhere.”
Dr Singh admitted to political interference at the local level, but said that it was up to senior officers to ensure that the force remained accountable not to politicians but to the law. He lamented the falling conviction rates and said this was leading to a reduction in fear of police. “Everybody wants to scrutinise the police,” he said, blaming politicians and human rights organisations for interference.
Policing by itself would not solve problems of rising crime, he said, and it would need value education.
The commissioner later told The Asian Age that he had received requests from senior citizens to take up moral policing. Dr Singh also mentioned a specific case when during a recent visit to LT Marg police station for a Grievance Redressal programme, an 83-year-old man asked him to take action against young couples who frequent a nearby park and indulge in acts the man found to be “obscene”.
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