CROWD CONTROL OR POLICE OUT OF CONTROL?
Are the police in India trigger-happy? That is the question that the June 13 incident of police firing at the assembly of farmers in Tonk district of Rajasthan raises.
The farmers were agitating for supply of water, when the police opened fire on June 13, 2005, killing five and injuring many more. The dead included a 35-year-old pregnant woman, who was at the terrace of her house when the police opened fire.
The Congress president Mrs Sonia Gandhi called it a shocking incident and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) threatened a statewide agitation against the ‘oppressive regime’ of a ‘former queen.’
Authentic facts about what happened are not yet known, but a few details can be gathered from press and other reports, like that of PUCL. Farmers had given a representation to the authorities long ago, demanding supply of water to their villages from the Bisalpur dam. On June 13, they had blocked the Tonk highway No 12 for four hours that day and nothing was reportedly done to clear the blockade for long. Except for some minor incidents of stone throwing, the protest was by and large reported to be peaceful till the police opened fire. No major incident of arson, loot or destruction of property had occurred till then. The police are reported to have opened fire without warning and without first using the other devices to disperse the crowd, like tear-gas, lathi charge etc. Action taken was unprovoked, sudden and deadly. Senior district officers, like the District Magistrate and the District Superintendent of Police were not present on the spot when the incident occurred, even though they knew that farmers’ resentment had been brewing up for some time and could take an ugly turn. They arrived later after the firing occurred.
The use of firearms to control unlawful assemblies is governed by basic principles laid down in law and in the police departmental regulations. The main principle is that of use of minimum force, which regulates police action in two important ways. One, it suggests that while using force, progressively stringent action should be taken. Firearms should therefore be used only in the end when all other means have failed to bring the situation under control. Two, it requires that irrespective of the means employed, the quantum of force used must be the minimum required to control the situation. Firing should cease immediately after the crowd shows signs of dispersing.
Way back in 1964, the Government of India had framed a set of Model Rules to guide police action in controlling crowd. The Model Rules were accepted and adopted by all state governments and are still valid. One of these Rules says that the use of firearms must be made only in extreme and exceptional circumstances when there is imminent and serious danger to life or property. The state police manuals insist on maintaining strict control over the use of firearms and prohibit firing in an aimless, confused or indisciplined manner. Firing should not be done in the air, nor should it be directed above the heads of the crowd.
The state government has ordered a judicial inquiry and it will be for them to decide if the firing was unjustified and excessive. Apparently, some of the important principles governing the use of firearms were disregarded.
The Tonk incident was one of the many in which the police in India have tried to control crowd by using firearms. The number of occasions on which firearms have been used is quite high. The Crime in India tells us that during the last decade i.e 1990-99, the police opened fire to disperse unlawful assemblies on as many as 5994 occasions, taking a toll of 1753 lives of citizens and causing injuries to 6886 others. These are high figures and are a cause for concern.
Any censure of police action in such situations is generally dismissed by police officers as unwarranted arm air criticism coming from those who did not have to bear the brunt of mobs fury in the form of stones and other missiles but who became wise in hindsight after the police controlled the situation. This response is so common, but is also so shortsighted, as it deprives the police of an opportunity to review different incidents to find what went wrong with their methods and tactics, their training, equipment and command and control. A review of such incidents would enable them to learn how to develop a high level of riot control capability, which would help in reducing the intensity of confrontations and in managing situations without the use of firearms.
The use of firearms by the police to disperse unlawful assemblies, even though permitted by law, has a number of implications, not the least important of which relates to the image of the police and the degree of acceptability of their actions in a democratic society. Every bullet fired by the police to disperse unlawful assembly leaves a long trail of bitterness and blood. It creates and sustains an impression in the public mind that the police in this country have no regard for the lives and feelings of the citizens. The police can ill afford to let this type of impression persist in the public mind. This of course does not mean that the police should turn a blind eye towards violations of law and order and allow the public to indulge in loot, violence and destruction. They are legally bound to control public disorder and violence. However, while performing this duty, it is important for the police to ensure that they do not convey the impression of using force indiscriminately or excessively, as they appear to have done in the Tonk incident.
To add insult to farmers’ injury, the concerned Tonk Police Station is reported to have refused to register FIRs of the victims of police firing even though they have registered cases against them under various sections of law.
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Original version of article published in the Indian Express dated July 22, 2005
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http://www.indianexpress.com/oldStory/74843/
