The avoidable police action!

Kolkata and its suburban districts witnessed tumultuous scenes yesterday with BJP leaders and supporters marching to the State Secretariate to protest the deterioration in the Law & Order situation in the state. Manish Shukla, a BJP leader, was gunned down on 4 October in the industrial suburb in Barrackpore in the North 24-Parganas on, which has precipitated a fresh faceoff between the BJP and the ruling TMC party.

The North 24 Parganas, an earlier dense industrial suburb, is well-known for lawlessness, though it limited to control of the labour unions and sharing the spoils from the disposal of scraps from the mills and factories. The conversion of many closed mills to residential complexes have revived the fortunes of the mafia and the region continues to be the centre of ‘badlands’ of West Bengal. It is not uncommon to see a gun-wielding gangster threatening others in a broad daylight and the police force simply looking the other way.

There were tectonic shifts in the State Politics, when a switchover TMC leader won the Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket in 2019. Ever since the area has become more tense and disturbed, the ruling TMC trying hard to regain its lost prestige and power.

The police action of yesterday was most unfortunate. The unleashed lathis on BJP Yuva Morcha protesters sitting on the road, which was returned with a volley of brickbats by the protesters. The police took to firing tear-gas shells and followed it with a vicious water-canon shooting on the protesters. The addition was colourants that were added to the water, which the police claimed was to identify the protestors. The colours were strong and seemed Basic Magenta or Basic Rhodamine, which dissolves in water only in the presence of a weak acid. Surely, the police may not be technologists and may have depended on some ‘all knowing’ bureaucrats, or followed what China did on its HL protesters.

The crowd management is an art. Managing a restive crowd, ready to provoke and spark a crisis, is a Science. Surely this is not an area the State Police force is specialized in, as witnessed yesterday. They must take cue from the young officer, who skillfully negotiated with a huge, similarly offended BJP supporters carrying the mortal remains of Manish Shukla. One fault step could have resulted in the enactment of more vicious scenes. Kudos to the officer of the Kolkata Police.

Kolkata Police may be suffering from a deficit of public faith, leaning too much towards the ruling party. They must, where maintenance of law and order is concerned, try to live up to an affordable neutrality. Those criticizing the police force of Uttar Pradesh as being too polarized towards the State Government, must not shy to advise our State Police to be less partisan as well.

The political opposition will intensify their protests, take out more rallies, often which may go out of control. Arresting by the hundreds and jailing them proves the failure of any preemptive plan and action.

I wish and pray, in the attempt to win the 2021 elections, West Bengal is not pushed back to the disquiet Seventies. Surely, the citizens of the State deserve a lot better than that.

Sampath Kumar

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