New Delhi: Denying bail to two Uttar Pradesh police officials who are accused of conspiring with gangster Vikas Dubey, the Allahabad high court expressed concern over political parties welcoming criminals and gangsters into their fold, saying if this trend continues, it will seriously dent the country’s democratic setup.
The high court on Tuesday denied bail to station house officer Vinay Kumar Tiwari and beat officer Krishna Kumar Sharma, who are accused of alerting Dubey about an impending raid on his house. This allowed the gangster and his associates to set up an ambush in Bikru village on July 3, 2020, the police say. Eight policemen died in the ambush. Dubey was later captured and killed in an alleged encounter on July 10.
In his order, Justice Pradeep Kumar Srivastava made several observations, spanning the nature of organised crime, the presence of ‘black sheep’ in the police force and the tendency of political parties to induct gangsters and criminals into their fold.
The order, published by LiveLaw, says that crime, corruption and population are “three major problems” that India is facing at present. “While against crime and corruption, particularly when it is organised crime and corruption, strict state action and intervention is necessary to restrict and minimise the same to [the] maximum extent, control over population growth requires legal steps and strategy inclusive of motivation, spread of education and awareness and some positive incentive to those who opt for family planning,” the judge wrote. He said against crime and corruption, the state must “continue with the policy of zero tolerance”.
Justice Srivastava said that recently, there has been a “concerning trend” where political parties welcome gangsters and criminals involved in organised crime into the party and try to back and protect them, “painting and spreading an imaginary image of Robinhood”.
“They are given tickets to contest elections and sometimes they win also. This trend needs to be stopped as soon as possible,” the order reads.
The court advised all political parties to take a decision that gangsters and criminals will be discouraged in politics and no political party will give tickets to them in public elections.
“The political parties should rise to the occasion and must guide themselves keeping in view that there cannot be a concept of ‘my criminal’ and ‘his criminal’ or ‘my man’ and ‘his man’, as a gangster is gangster only and is required to be condemned from all corners and even people/voters should also take note of it while making their choice for a candidate in a general election,” the order says.
According to LiveLaw, the court added:
“We must have the idea in mind that if we are entrusted with the responsibility of nation-building, our responsibility is to think about the future generation to whom we have to hand over a legacy. We need to ponder what kind of nation and society we want to leave for our future generation.”
If this trend is allowed to continue, one day these gangsters and criminals will become “Bhasmasur” and will dent the country and its democratic setup, the court said.
Also Read: Vikas Dubey Is the Symptom of a Political System That Provides Patronage to Criminals
The court said that strict and rigorous steps need to been taken to “break and demolish the financial network of gangsters”. This shall certainly bring about more positive results towards restricting criminal activities and organised crime, the court opined.
The order acknowledges that police officers face several difficulties in combating organised crime and criminal activities, including that they do not have access to “sophisticated arms”. These, the court said, “are available in plenty to the gangsters and their gang members”.
However, Justice Srivastava also said that it is “not an unknown phenomenon” that some policemen, though they may be very few in numbers, “show their loyalty more to such gangsters than to their department”.
“Such policemen tarnish the image, name, and fame of police and it is necessary that suspicious police personnel should be taken to task and their conduct should be regularly monitored for which a mechanism should be evolved, and if it exists already, the same should be geared up at different levels,” the court said.
The court said that “policing such police personnel is a big task”, suggesting that early identification of ‘black sheep’, monitoring their conduct and taking immediate strict disciplinary action would help reduce the problem.
The court gave the serious and heinous nature of the offence, complicity of the applicants in the conspiracy and the overall circumstances of the case as reasons to deny the bail applications of the two UP police officers.
