The murder of Narendra Kumar (IPS) - A few thoughts of an officer.

The brutal killing of the young IPS Officer, Narendra Kumar by the mining mafia in Madhya Pradesh is absolutely outrageous and shocking. He had the option of just passing across the truck and directed to the nearby Police station to inspect the tractor and continued his journey. Instead, he chose the harder way and paid the price for doing the right thing. From the reports, it is clear that he has been acting tough on the mining mafia. They operate with the single objective of ensuring the materials reach the destination in time. The driver is often briefed "not bother for anything that comes to your way, just drive off even if somebody comes on your way, we will see that nothing happens to you". The advent of IT and mobile phones has made the communication within the mafia very easy. I am sure the members of the mafia would have watched Narendra Kumar’s movement closely. Even his own subordinates would have tipped the others of his moves. This is a challenge a young officer from outside the state has to face. He does not know whom to trust, whom not to take into confidence. Most of the officers get through this challenge. It is unfortunate that a young promising officer had to make the ultimate sacrifice due to this. The mafia operates with single motive, will adopt anything to attain their aims. The whole society views the officers as completely hand in glove with the mafia while a majority are not. Most of them keep silent due to various factors, like fear for life or not getting enough support from the higher/lower level. Those who do not budge are many times threatened, transferred and in extreme cases, attacked. However, the incident of yesterday is in fact very shocking as the physical elimination is not resorted normally. Even, I had to face such a situation in my district recently when a team of revenue officials were attacked by the sand mafia during the night. That was also for the first time, though we have been casing too much damage to them during the last two years. We have to doubt whether there is a conscious change by the mafia in their modus operandi. That is, Instead of fighting the law enforcement, adopt a policy of physically removing the toughest from the scene so that the rest will either comply or will keep quite. We have to read the incidence of burning the Additional Collector, Nasik also along with this. These incidents bring a major issue to the focus. That is the safety of the law enforcing machinery and the confidence enjoyed by these officers in taking the mafia of various kind head on. The IAS/IPS officers are lucky to get some level of protection and public attention, while the case is very bad for the lower level staff. They are most of the time left alone to look after themselves. We do not have a system that would work as an effective shock absorber in such situations. When many around you turn the informers, one becomes helpless and realise the futility of his efforts. Added to this, the most ill equipped government system also contributes to the lower degree of law enforcement. When a group of officials face an unruly crowd, many of them would bot have been equipped with protective gear, simply because they are not available at the lower level. This leads major injury to the ground staff especially the constables. The situation is at least better in police as they have been provided with some types of protective gears. Our system does not recognise the need of other law enforcing departments to be equipped with such life protecting equipments. Revenue, forest, mines and geology are some such departments which are vulnerable as they are asked to go to the field in time of crisis or to conduct raids, but the department has systematically forgotten to equip them either with materials or with skills. Finally, it is easy for an outsider to criticise the inaction on the part of government officials. However, people rarely realise the difficulties they face, the pulls and pressures affecting them and the tough battle they fight. Neither public nor media never highlights the good things done by them. This in turn severely affects their morale. Such stray incidents of physical elimination increase the fear. The law enforcing machinery would get into action now, catch hold of many who are in the granite business and effectively control it for some time. Once the dust settles down and the public get another major issue, this will be forgotten, and the same situation will come back. The ultimate loser is the family of the officer and the society at large. Let us hope those who are responsible for this act are brought to the law faster, tried and given maximum punishment that deter others. Lets support his family for coping up with this irreparable loss.