Last week the Hatras issue dominated the headlines. The crime is said to have a caste, economic, gender, and legal aspect of it. Here will be discussing all these here.
I am coming here and writing about after watching it and understanding why we Indian population is behaving weird on social media, that even educated people like us fall for propaganda. It took me days to actually digest what was happening and to come into a logical conclusion to put forward the research.
Link to Soch video
What is a crime?
For understanding crime, you need to understand What is a tort? A tort is nothing but a wrong committed against an individual entity (can also be a property).
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Unlike a tort, Crime is defined as a wrongful act not only against an individual but also against the State(essentially meant as a society). Crime is believed to affect society as a whole. It is tried in a criminal court.
Even though right and wrong is purely a subjective concept, the law clearly defines the wrongful part.
What are the criminal laws in India?
The most important one will be known to all, but there are more laws that are lesser-known but are very important. In India, we have mainly three laws.
- Indian Penal Code of 1860 (Defines various crimes, criminal offences as codes and punishment)
- Criminal Procedure Code of 1976 (Mentions about criminal trials procedure)
- Indian Evidence Act of 1872 (Mentions various legally accepted pieces of evidence)
There are various other laws like POCSO, Juvenile Justice act, Cyber Laws etc. But these three are the most fundamental.
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Credits- LawRato
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Often political parties come to elections with big slogans and hopes, but when they capture power they fail to execute their promises. It is actually not their sole problem. The top brass itself can't change everything. The system as such is slow and rough. Both centre and state have their own agency and mechanisms in place. Law and Order is a state matter. (We can discuss the division of powers in a later article.)
The centre controls
- NIA
- CBI
- Central Vigilance
- ED
- Customs
- Other police and security forces
CBI is the most powerful Criminal Investigator in the country and it has the power even to conduct an international investigation for crimes related to India. NIA would be the second most powerful, which has immense powers under UAPA, and the NIA act. It was formed after the 2008 Mumbai attacks and is concerned with terrorism and national security etc. Vigilance mainly deals with matters of corruption and Govt matters.
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Credits- Pxfuel
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The state controls
- State Police
- Crime Branch
- Cyber Cell
- State Vigilance
The Police itself is the most powerful and the most agency under the state government and reports directly to the Home Minister. Crime Branch is a subsidiary of the Police with special powers, which mainly deals with difficult crimes, cybercrimes, international crimes etc. The state vigilance deals with Corruption and ensure proper functioning and auditing of Government institutions.
Politics
At present just flipping two pages of newspaper makes you tired. You will encounter all these names at least in most of the columns. All these agencies at least in one point or the other, have been alleged to have worked as puppets for the ruling parties, especially those governments that are dictatorial in nature.
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Credits- GovernanceNow
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Often a lot of gangsters and criminals are closely associated with political parties. Even our elected representatives are charged with a serious offence pending on them. In states like UP, there is said to be internal nexus between Police and Gangs is pretty much known. Similarly, when a political party takes over, the criminal cases of party loyalists are dropped due to political pressure. Eg- In Kerala, party workers of CPIM were caught and the police are alleged to have been partisan with them. There is generally no proof over this argument but it is largely perceived that Police often comes under extreme pressure from the ruling regime. In India, we have 28 states and these 28 states have their own control over police and it's quite non-uniform. Only the Police in Union Territory come under the Central Government which includes Delhi.
As per NCRB, over 32,000 Rapes are reported in India every year, but only a handful of them reach headlines and only an extremely rare case gets massive headlines and outrage. Why? Media takes up these cases looking into social, economic or any other reasons may be political too. Eg- Nirbhaya, Telegana and Hatras were the three most outraged cases where the victim was gang-raped and got killed either on the spot or during treatment.
Hathras issue outrage
Why did this issue get extra attention? This is despite the fact that it's observed that cases in rural areas get lesser attention than those in urban areas. Nirbhaya case happened in Delhi which was an urban area and the Disha case in a suburban area. Even the case didn't come to light until the woman died at the hospital during treatment. Then on, the caste angle was evident and politicisation happened.
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| Credits- DNAIndia |
Why this case is important and not an ordinary case? Even though governments and police cannot be on the ground to protect each and every citizen, there are a lot of things that both of them can do post a crime has taken place.
Here, the woman was found lying in the field in which the family used to work in. She was injured and her tongue was found to be cut. At the nearest police station when they went to file the complaint, there are allegations that there was a delay in accepting the complaint and filing the FIR by the police. Only after more than an hour, she was taken to the near health centre, which too, didn't have proper facilities. She had to be taken to JN Medical College in Aligarh which was far away. Only the next day she informed the police regarding molestation and attempt to murder. Sandeep, the mentioned accused was arrested. Later gang rape case was filed after she was informed about more people's involvement in the magistrate which happened after a week after the incident took place. JNMC reports suggested no record of rape happening, but only attempt to use of force and awaits for Forensic report.
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Credits- Hindustan Times
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Again due to inadequacies in the MC, she had to be shifted to Delhi in a critical state. She died the very next day. Overnight UP police cremated her body without Family's permission (As per allegations) although Police claim that it was done with the knowledge of family members. All the accused were Thakur which is a dominant caste in UP and the victim was Dalit. As per the on-ground reportage by ThePrint, it is pretty clear that the village is divided over the issue. Thakurs in the village support the accused and Dalits support the Victim. The team also says that both families knew each other and this is a case of a love affair and later turned out to be a violent one. A nationwide protest, politicisation by the opposition followed including the International Coverage of the incident. UP govt. calls for a three-member SIT probe. Three similar incidents were reported in different parts of the UP.
Problems- The Police didn't take the complaint seriously and even till her death, the majority of the statements of the victim stands missing. There were no adequate facilities in the village nor in the district and had to travel quite far. Even then, she had to be taken to Delhi which was really far for a critical patient. Police allegedly didn't record the statements correctly and contradicts the family's claims. Police cremate the body overnight without the presence of family members, which is one of the most undignified things that can happen to a Human Being. Villagers are taking their stance depending on their caste. They live in segregated neighbourhoods and don't mingle with each other much. The government and police showed a lack of interest and accountability. UP police caught three Journalists, told them that they are linked with PFI and put a UAPA case on them for conspiracy.
Implications and questions
Caste and gender discrimination is a very important factor why such incidents repeatedly take place. We are not interested in the root cause and how to change it. We are more interested in things like Public Hanging, Death Penalty, quoting China, Saudi Arabia and Iran's death penalty on social media because that is the easiest thing for us to do.
I had discussed in detail why we should oppose the Death penalty since it is not a solution. We discussed in detail the cases in Hong Kong and Singapore too.
The governments and society are not so into solving the issues and root causes, but just to safeguard its image as such. They are more interested in contesting and winning elections. The police prevented the media from meeting the family multiple times. The Soch video also explains how the village saw many instances of discrimination. Rapes are used as a way to subjugate women and also used as a political weapon by dominant castes. Along with social reasons, the poor are going to be more affected and the chances are that it makes them more difficult to approach the system for help.
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Credits-Xboom Utilities Pvt Ltd
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A criminal mindset has the following
- Punishment post-conviction (Also called deterrence)
- Chances of criminals not being caught by the system
Everyone focuses on the first one and miss a lot of important details about the second. What if the state can give a strict punishment but doesn't know how to track down criminals. This will also include how criminals can tamper with the evidence, not get caught or even getting protection from politicians and police. So it is important that we give importance to the Certainty of punishment than the severity of punishment. More certainty the system can catch criminals, more will be the confidence of people in the system. India is still not the country with the highest criminal cases in the world, because most of the cases go unreported, and don't make it to the system. Even the system at present is slow as the no. of pending cases is rampantly increasing. The conviction rate is far lower in India than in many developed countries. Even in most cases, it is very easy for Police to bring up dummy accused and kill them in fake encounters just like how it is rampant in UP. Recently, Vikas Dubey was killed in an encounter and his body was never returned to the family, and fake encounters are used by politicians to sabotage and reduce public anger. Eg- in the Disha case that happened, that even without a fair trial accused were killed in an encounter and the case was closed.
Making news laws/stringent is what everyone claims whenever an incident like this happens. But rarely do people realise that the Law itself is strong, but the system fails at the implementation part. So no matter whatever law you enact and pass in the legislature, you won't see a substantial change on the ground because the system as such is at a standstill. The number of pending cases is overflowing in all courts, in POSCO courts and even in fast track courts. In many of the cases probe itself is not completed in a proper time frame, leave alone the trial. All these factors as such make the certainty of punishment very less. Now, criminals believe that they can do anything and will not get convicted by the system any time soon. Although we talked about the speedy trial, it is not to be misinterpreted as a hurried trial like a banana republic or to deny any procedures of a fair trial.
Justice hurrried is justice burried.
In the Hathras case, Allahabad HC has asked to take tough action on the criminals, as well as call out the police on its lapses. The SIT probe is completed and the report is expected to be submitted soon to the government.
Now, we have come to the end of a very long problem statement. People will ask, you described the problem very well. You are a critic, you don't have the proper solution to suggest. Fear not, we do have solutions too.
Solutions
Here are ten different ways to fix the law and order system and something which is in deep trouble.
- Speedy Free and Fair trail and increasing conviction rate
- Filling the vacancies of judges
- Strengthening law enforcement mechanisms
- Fighting inequalities
- Frontline crime prevention and control teams, at least in urban and vulnerable areas.
- Abolition of capital punishment
- Fixing legal loopholes
- Improving the image of the Indian Criminal System
- Political reform
- Police reform
As a political analyst, it is difficult to discuss many legal aspects. Since a lot of causes are linked with politics as such we will be focusing more on 9 and 10.
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Credits- Dristi IAS
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Political Reform basically discusses how the Political System can be improved. This also includes the reformation of society as such, because politics is nothing but a subsection of the society. Fighting inequalities and inclusion is the most important part of reform. The religious, caste and economic powerplay will automatically reduce. Despite being the largest democracy, the representation of people as such is non-uniform. Muscle power and money power is still an important driver of politics in India. The powers of the Government is often use misused to suppress dissent, opinions, ideas etc using NSA, Sedition or even Public Safety Act. The political parties have various agendas and their own views regarding various aspects. Another challenge is corruption, where the people in authority misuse their seats for personal gains. An important aspect is communalisation where everything has caste, religious and class angle. All these come under Political Reform. Removing them is indeed a big challenge but it is inevitable for a better political future. Decentralisation of power and anti-corruption strengthening should be the main priority as a legal perspective of political reform.
The most important solution which I wish to convey here is Police Reform. As per the Indian Police Act 1861, Police is a state subject.
The ratio of policemen to the population in India is 143 per a lakh of population, which is quite low as the UN suggests a ratio of 222 per lakh of population. The ratio varies throughout the country as different states have different ratios. For eg Kerala is considered to be the best state for law and order, but the North Eastern States have a higher ratio. Police have always been puppet instruments of the state government. They experience a lot of pressure from their bosses. There were multiple cases where the SC had asked the Central Govt to initiate Police Reform, but due to opposition from Political parties, it has never happened. So, basically speaking, Police Reform cannot happen in isolation without Political Reform. In 2017, The Kerala Government had decided to remove then DGP- TP Senkumar from the post and replace him with Loknath Behra. This made Senkumar move to SC where he alleged that he was removed because he had done an investigation in political murders in the state where members of the ruling parties were also involved. The SC accepted his arguments and later asked the Government to reinstate him until his tenure ends. This was an example of a case where there was pressure on Police from the State Government.
What are the Police Reforms? In 2006, the SC gave guidelines where it suggested seven points. They are Establishment of State Security Commission (SSC) which will ensure that State Governments won't interfere in the Functioning of Police. The DGP of the Police will be selected by Merit and will have a minimum tenure of two years. All the other operational officers will also be provided with minimum tenure. The transfers, complaints etc all require the establishment of independent commissions as well. So all these were the main suggestions regarding police reforms.
Read in detail.
It will be curious to see which government will actually come forward and show the courage to roll put Police reforms. But as we discussed before Police Reform will not happen in India unless Political Reform happens and there is no authority in India that can actually enforce Political Reform. The maximum what we can do is, to change ourselves and the society so that Politics becomes more accountable to us. Police persons need to be more concerned, friendly towards their people. A good initiative which we know is the Janamythri police in Kerala. They are not only discharging their duties but also engage in reducing the gap between civilians and police.
This is the main capsule that discussed crime, its causes, examples, Hathras case study, solutions which included political and police reform. Let us hope that we change ourselves before pointing our fingers at someone else.
All views expressed here are personal.
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