I love watching Hollywood movies, especially the police action scenes when a desperate hero or his wife picks up the phone and calls the police, “Officer there’s a homicide!” And before you can say Jack Robinson or whatever the American equivalent is, squad cars with sirens screaming and lights flashing zero in on the place, cops with hands on the trigger jump out of the car, surround the place, shoot in the air, then enter the house, wrestle with the murderer, then handcuff him and take him away, maybe after a small gun battle.
I believe to a certain extent American police are like what you see in the movies. But, oh no, not our men in khaki; our policemen are investigators, they turn up after the crime is done, question the victims as if they are the thieves, beat up the servants and use third degree. Like I said, they think they are detectives not crime fighters: I have never heard of any cops rushing to the scene of a crime, not in India anyway!
How do we get these men in uniform to come? How do we get them out of their lethargy, out of their laziness and make them realize they are crime-fighters not just investigators; that their job is to prevent crime not just find out whodunit.Here’s a somewhat true story of a citizen who managed to turn the tables on the cops, names and place changed: Mr Kapoor, an elderly man, was going up to bed, when his wife told him he’d left the light on in sitting room, which she could see from the corridor. Mr Kapoor opened the door to go turn off the light, but suddenly saw that there were people in the room stealing things.
He phoned the police, who asked “Is someone murdered in your house?” He said “No,” but some people have broken into my home and stealing from me. Then the police control room constable on duty said “All patrols are busy. You should lock your doors and a policeman will be along when one is available.”
Mr Kapoor said, “Okay.” He hung up the phone and counted to thirty. Then he phoned the police again. “Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my sitting room. Well, you don’t have to worry about them now because I just shot them!” and he hung up.
Within five minutes, two police vans and an ambulance showed up at Mr Kapoors residence, and caught the burglars red-handed. As they were leaving with the criminals one of the policemen turned to Mr Kapoor and said, “I thought you said you’d shot them!” And Mr Kapoor turned to the policeman and said very seriously, with not a trace of a smile “I thought you said there was nobody available!” Ha, ha, ha! So there’s hope for anyone with innovative ideas, there are other ways than money to make our men in khaki fight crime..!
