The Nation: Metro Crime; Fumbling Police

An overworked, poorly equipped, understaffed police force bungles its way across the metros in investigating crime and prosecuting the guilty. Shoddy probes and pliable officers embolden criminals to unleash a wave of murder, extortion and robbery.

Though I know he is the man who committed the crime, I acquit him, giving him the benefit of the doubt." The words stunned the court. Santosh Singh, self-confessed murderer of Priyadarshini Mattoo, was being let off. But Additional Sessions Judge G.P. Thareja had no other option.

By putting up a weak and callously-probed case, Delhi Police and the CBI had distorted the meaning of justice. It was almost an open-and-shut case. Singh had been arrested within 24 hours of the crime in January 1996. Son of a serving IGP, he had been stalking and harassing 24-year-old Delhi University student Priyadarshini for over a year. Singh's confession to her rape and murder left no leeway for the defence.

Yet, last week it was the prosecution that was in the dock. In his judgement, Thareja pointed out the shaky foundation of the police case: the DNA reports had been fabricated by the CBI in collusion with forensic experts, blood and semen tests were botched, witness examination was slipshod and the CBI had allowed Singh's father to influence the case greatly.

"They had the killer in their grasp and they let him slip away," mourned C.L. Mattoo, the victim's father.

RUNNING on empty

Catch Thief! In What?
Of Delhi's 350 patrol cars, 100 are stationed in a low-crime area where the elite live. The city outside with 55 times more people must make do with the rest. Yet, 360 more vehicles are used as staff cars for officers -- and for their shopping trips and social life. Bangalore, with 52 lakh people, gets by with 45 patrol vans. Number of staff cars: 40.
Too Few of Them
Bangalore has just 86 police stations for 52 lakh people -- one for every 63,000. In Mumbai, the police receives around 30 requests for cover every day. The situation is the same in all the metros.
Stressed to the Limit
Overwork, frustration and social dysfunction have created universal stress and depression, says a study of policemen in Delhi and Bangalore. And dangerously, almost all said guns gave them a sense of security.
Lowest of the Low
A constable gets an average of two promotions in his life time. Starting salary in Mumbai is Rs 2,700 gross. A novice municipal sweeper gets Rs 5,000, a bus conductor Rs 4,000.
Dead Beat
A constable works between 12 and 16 hours a day, often 30 days a month. No overtime, no extra benefits. Constables in barracks see families once or twice a year.

Dreadful lapses of this kind by the investigating police are becoming an alarming trend. And emboldened by such slipshod investigation, outdated techniques and inadequate patrols, criminals are striking hard at the core of urban India. Delhi, of course, is the worst: more crimes are committed here than in Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta put together. Don't believe, however, that these cities are any safer. Metropolitan policing is falling apart, ridden as it is by a colonial, lop-sided structure, lack of equipment, an overworked, corrupt and stressed constabulary with rock-bottom morale. Crime graphs are no indication, thanks to unreported crimes and suppressed cases. Yet, each city has defining crimes, and these, the police admit, are spiralling. If Delhi's crime cause celebre is murder, Bangalore's is robbery and Mumbai's rampant extortion (see graphics).

"We're watching a system going to the dogs," says Julio Ribeiro, former Mumbai police commissioner. Thareja's words confirmed the feeling that though the police manages to catch the crooks and file charge-sheets, it can send few to jail. Chennai has the best record, yet only half of all chargesheeted cases end in convictions. In Calcutta, one lakh cases are registered every year; 8,000 are eventually investigated successfully and chargesheeted. But of these only 2,000 will get justice. "Nobody cares about the rest," says former Calcutta police commissioner Tushar Talukdar. Less than 11 per cent of criminals are chargesheeted in Mumbai, less than 40 per cent in Delhi and less than 5 per cent in Bangalore are actually sent to jail.

The criminal justice system is on the verge of collapse," says D.R. Singh, head of the criminology department at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). The crumbling system is giving confidence to new criminals, mostly first-timers, pouring into the cities from the hinterland. Top this off with political interference and corruption and you aren't overreacting if you fear for your life. In a recent study, Singh says Mumbai's wave of murders (365 in 1998 against 288 in 1997) and out-of-control extortions have been mainly caused by a weak law-enforcement machinery. After collating information from victims and the police, the study estimates that almost 40 per cent of offences are not reported. "The crime reports we see are not a true index of crime," he says.

DEATH OF DETECTION? How a case should be handled The rise in the incidence of metro crime is largely a result of unscientific investigation. How is the investigative process crumbling? An outline.
How a case should be handled	How it is handled
1. A call is made to police emergency number 100. Ideally, a patrol, either on foot, motorcycle of van, should reach the scene in five minutes	Response time varies anywhere from 20 minutes to six hours, depending on availability of officers and vehicles and magnitude sometimes takes days.
2. Talk to witnesses. Pick up evidence from crime scene, like hair samples, fingerprints, swabs of blood. They must be placed in sterile bags.	No serious search for witnesses as in the Mattoo case. Evidence is often ignored. Officers freely disturb the scene of crime. Crime investigators, always in short supply, arrive late. Clues are lost.
3. An investigating officer is assigned to a heinous crime like murder. He or she must work full time and handle no more than 50 cases a year.	Investigators handle at least 100 cases a year. But they get no more than three hours a day to pursue these cases. They also attend to VIP security, accidents, even demolition and visit courts.
4. Scientific laboratory analysis of fingerprints, blood and other evidence. Investigators must quickly follow leads to other states.	Fingerprinting is often not done, modern DNA tests are virtually not used. Laboratories have a waiting list of up to two years. Investigators often don't even get transport to follow leads.
5. A charge-sheet, final investigative report for trial, must be filed, supported by material and forensic evidence. Witnesses must be available.	The goal is to file the charge-sheet, not to put a watertight case together. With faulty evidence, witnesses turning hostile, cases fall apart in court. On an average less than a third end in conviction.

So metropolitan police forces astonishingly show a downward or steady trend in overall crimes. Burking, or the refusal to register cases, became rampant by the mid-'90s when crime graphs were on an alarming upward spiral. If the Mattoo judgement was a eyeopener, there couldn't have been a more visible example of the police breakdown than the sight of paramilitary troops with automatic rifles on the streets of Saket, a south Delhi colony, in February to reassure terror-stricken citizens after an unchecked spree of murders.

While the failure to clap criminals in jail has a lot to do with a crumbling criminal-justice system, the poor quality of public prosecution and investigation is much to blame. It's the prosecutor's job to sift witnesses from the often rambling investigation reports but he cannot, unlike in the US, initiate a probe and carry it out to his satisfaction. An Indian prosecutor has to take what the police gives, and even he knows justice is not being served. "It's like becoming the father of a child that is already dead," says Calcutta High Court Public Prosecutor Kazi Saifullah. "Sometimes I can see a case being manipulated to frame someone but I can't do anything. I still have to defend it." The police instead blame the prosecutors. "There is no coordination between the police and the public prosecutor -- that's the crux of the problem," says Param Bir Singh, till recently DCP, detection, Mumbai.

The result is criminals know there's a big difference between being arrested and going to jail. "Look here man, I am 47 years old. By the time you investigate and prosecute me, I'll be dead and gone." This is what Jai Sudarshan, an army ambulance driver, told S.P. Balaji, the then SP, CBI, in 1986. Sudarshan, who had duped hundreds of overseas job-seekers and pensioners, had 14 cases against him but he managed to delay the proceedings by filing numerous defamation cases against the investigating officers. He died on April 15, 1999 without serving a jail term.

Investigation suffers greatly because of a horrendously burdened police and plain ineptitude. Mumbai had four policemen for every 1,000 people in 1951; today there's barely one policeman for every thousand. When set up in 1988, Vasant Kunj police station -- under whose jurisdiction Mattoo was murdered -- had a sanctioned strength of 148 constables, 39 head constables and 15 officers. Today, while the population has doubled to 2.5 lakh, the police force has dwindled to 77 constables, 29 head constables and 13 officers.

This incremental pressure is telling on police performance. The norm is to give an investigating officer about 50 cases a year and then leave him free to investigate. Instead, they double up as investigators and handle over 100 cases each -- that is if they get time after attending court, paper work, providing protection for demolitions, responding to everything from domestic quarrels to murders. In Calcutta, investigative work is done only for 10 days every month; in Bangalore officers get no more than an hour a day.

"Investigation is a farce," admits Inspector Veer Singh Tyagi, station house officer (SHO) at Delhi's Patel Nagar. He never reaches home before midnight, but he's back by 9 a.m. That's on good days; he sleeps in the station 15 days a month. The problems continue with hopelessly outdated and careless probing techniques. "The dwindling interest in crime detection, which is real policing, and the rush for law and order duties with their 'perks', has brought us to this pass," says S.R. Sukumara, Hyderabad police commissioner.

In this bleak landscape, heavy workloads and witnesses turning hostile or losing interest because of delays, forensic evidence is critical to improve the abysmally dismal conviction rate. But in Delhi the waitlist to test viscera and swabs at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) is at least two years. It is little wonder that cases die their own death. "The system should have broken down long ago," remarks former Delhi Police chief Ved Marwah. "It's a surprise it's still there." Only just.

The biggest reason for police inefficiency officers point to, interestingly, is not poor investigation or a crumbling organisational structure, but interference. In Mattoo's case, the judge pointed out that Singh's father was a senior police officer whose influence in the investigation was palpable. The police have also been systematically emaciated by the virus of politics -- from ministers openly handing over lists of their "candidates" for metropolitan appointments as chiefs of police to legislators forcing go-slows, even murder cover-ups -- but mix it with corruption and a failing system and the recipe for breakdown is complete.

The Anti-Corruption Bureau in Mumbai says complaints against policemen outnumber all others. Corruption in the police also has a lot to do with the breakdown of other civil authorities. For example, some cities now require the police to keep a vigil on land encroachments and illegal constructions. It is a quicksand for honest officers, a fertile breeding ground for corrupt ones. But corruption will never go away as long as the frontline of defence against crime -- the constabulary -- is horrifically overworked and underpaid (see box). Policemen who should be fighting crime often end up cooking and cleaning in the houses of senior officers. Calcutta sociologist Bula Bhadra points out that the police is just as the colonial rulers left it: anachronistic, unfriendly and oppressive.

Again, the best investigative training is reserved for IPS officers. But they are never the first on the crime scene. Officers estimate that half the police force doesn't know the first thing about investigation. Constables in Calcutta only need to be Class VIII pass. They go through six months' training, but mostly for physical fitness; they know as much about the latest forensic advances, like genetic typing (matching the genes from a hair or blood to a suspect) as they do nuclear fusion.

Clearly, the three-tier structure must be abolished and single-point induction introduced so everyone joins as a street policeman and gets the best training and equipment to fight crime. Other costs are also involved. Lab facilities need to be updated and the patrolling ratio has to be increased.

But restructuring and other police reforms, recommended by eight successive National Police Commission (NPC) reports since 1979, have been blatantly ignored. That isn't surprising because the suggested changes would undermine today's police-politician nexus, including restructuring the hierarchy. Until this happens, more money and manpower, even if it is made available, will be a fire-fighting job -- at best.

The lackadaisical approach to policing in the country has led to a severe loss of faith in the uniformed brigade. More and more people are turning to private security agencies for protection. But more dangerous, the failure of the police to secure convictions through impeccable investigation and prosecution is undermining the very concept of justice.

MATTOO CASE
Justice Denied

Priyadarshini Mattoo met a macabre end. The 24-year-old was raped and strangled in her south Delhi flat in January 1996. The alleged killer, Santosh Kumar Singh, son of a serving IGP, had been stalking her for almost a year. That fateful day her parents were away, as was the personal security officer provided by the police following six complaints of harassment against Singh by the Delhi University law student. The murder was the result of a fatal obsession; Singh, a few years her senior, had allegedly turned a psychopath as Priyadarshini refused to marry him.

The Accused: Santosh Kumar When Singh was arrested on January 24, a day after the murder, it appeared like an easy case. He even broke down and confessed to his crime. So when a Delhi court acquitted him last week the judgement exposed how the investigation was manipulated by the police and the CBI -- which was entrusted the case to prevent the police officer father of the accused from influencing the Delhi Police.

In his 450-page order, Additional Sessions Judge G.P. Thareja highlights how crucial elements of the investigation were botched first by Delhi Police and then the CBI. One of the main witnesses, Kuppu Swamy, the Mattoos' immediate neighbour in Vasant Kunj, was not examined by the police for two days after the incident. Swamy was among the two people who first discovered Priyadarshini's body amidst pieces of broken glass and blood stains. The delayed examination gave the defence ground to argue that Swamy was a witness "created" by the investigators.

The most glaring lapse on part of the CBI, which took over the probe two days after the crime, was not examining Virendra Prasad, the Mattoo family servant. Prasad who had returned from an errand was the first on the scene of the crime. He rushed to Swamy before reporting the incident to the police. Yet the CBI failed to examine him even once. It told the court that a team did go to Prasad's native village in Siwan, Bihar, only to learn that he had gone to Mumbai. For the prosecution, Prasad was the prime witness.

Apart from the callous manner in which witnesses were handled, the investigators made a mockery of collecting forensic evidence and in getting them tested. Items collected during Priyadarshini's post-mortem at the Safdarjung Hospital were a T-shirt, a pair of jeans, a bra, an underwear and a pair of socks. Two samples of vaginal swabs were taken and two slides prepared. These were sealed and handed over to the CBI. But both the investigating officers of the Delhi Police and the CBI were silent on who received the items for forensic tests. The sealed packet reached the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) at Hyderabad but minus the socks.

At the post-mortem stage, the victim's blue underwear as well as her jeans had no stains. But the CCMB later confirmed the presence of white stains. On testing it turned out they were not semen stains. If Priyadarshini was raped, the stains should have been of semen. The judge did not rule out the possibility of the report being tampered with. Even Singh's underwear was sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) in Delhi. From the few dried, white stains on it, the CFSL concluded the blood group was A. Whereas Singh's blood group was O-positive. This was apart from the fact that, as the judge pointed out, there was no mention of any stains when the underwear was collected from Singh. The stains, obviously, were created by the investigators or the laboratory.

Also, of the 20 ml of blood collected from the accused for testing only 12 ml reached the CCMB. The prosecution pleaded that the rest evaporated, but the judge noted this was against the principles of physical sciences.

Indeed, the tale of goof-ups began when Priyadarshini was alive. In the eight-month period between February 25 and November 6, 1995, the Mattoo family complained to the police on half a dozen occasions about Singh's misdemeanour and harassment of Priyadarshini. Sometimes he would block her car with his motorcycle at a red light; on the campus, while shadowing her, he would try grabbing her arm and pulling her. Each time he was detained by the police he apologised to the Mattoos and was let off.

The judge noted that an "ordinary citizen" would have been booked and sent behind bars, but because of his father's clout, Singh kept getting away. And was back to torment her with a renewed zeal. A PSO was provided to Priyadarshini but even this did not deter him. He stalked her even more aggressively. Finally, out of sheer frustration, the spurned "Romeo" walked into her flat on the pretext of reaching a compromise and killed her.

The judgement may have exposed the sordid side of police investigation, but it also shows how the judiciary can falter in not insisting on witness examinations and by not giving any weightage to Singh's confession before the police. Indeed, what makes it damning is that an accused is set free despite substantial motive, confession as well as circumstantial and physical evidence.

-Sayantan Chakravarty

PRIVATE CONCERN
With police failing, people are hiring security firms

Some years ago, it was easy for armed robbers to strike at the two-acre industrial-gas unit of Hotz Industries in the outskirts of Delhi: they only had to get past a lone guard. "Today," says proprietor S.K. Jain, 50, "their task would be more difficult." He has called in over a dozen armed men in navy blue uniform to stand guard at the plant.

It's the same story across the country. With the police unable to curb crime, people are increasingly turning to private security. There were about 6,000 companies offering private security services in 1995. Today, there are almost 20,000 firms employing around 7.5 lakh people, says the Association of Security Organisations of India, Delhi. The industry's turnover has grown ninefold to about Rs 1,000 crore since 1995.

Spiralling demand comes from an overstretched and ill-equipped police force. "Those who are sitting ducks for criminals should make their own arrangements and not depend on the police alone," says K.A. Jacob, DGP, Patna. "The size of the police force cannot be increased indefinitely," continues Vijay Karan, former commissioner of police, Delhi. Karan's own firm, Knight Watch, operates in six states, employing over 600 guards.

The prohibitive price for private security is not a deterrent. Sharp Detectives in Bangalore, for instance, charges Rs 800-1,500 for an eight-hour shift. However, there are few checks or legislation to ensure quality. A bill on private security agencies, drafted in 1987, awaits Parliament's nod.

Some firms lay great stress on training. The Security and Intelligence Services has set up a training centre at Anushashanpuram in Bihar, the largest of its kind in Asia, where 3,000 aspirants receive training every year in various areas, including commando attacks and use of modern gadgets.

Private policing was born because of rising crime. If unchecked, it could prove counter-productive.

-Sayantan Chakravarty

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