Police-politician nexus

Allegations of impropriety in Maharashtra must be probed

Among the many mysteries linked to the terror threat against the Ambani family and the role of senior police officers, are allegations against key leaders of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, specifically state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, from the Nationalist Congress Party. Two sets of allegations have been made by two senior police officers and they demand answers. The major one comes from former Mumbai Police chief Param Bir Singh against Mr Deshmukh, claiming that the latter had been using the city police force to extort Rs 100 crore a month from pubs, bars, and small businesses in the city. Mr Singh was recently shunted out after serious irregularities were discovered in the conduct of the investigation of the bomb scare outside the Ambani residence, including gaping inconsistencies in the behaviour of Assistant Police Inspector Sachin Waze. The second one, which was revealed in Mr Singh’s petition before the Supreme Court for a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the allegations against Mr Deshmukh, comes from a letter by the former commissioner of intelligence Rashmi Shukla alleging a racket on money for transfers and promotions.

Two key questions follow from these revelations, neither of which reflects well on the police or the MVA alliance. First, if Mr Singh felt so strongly about the demands from politicians that he moved the Supreme Court (which asked him to refer to the high court), why did he not speak up earlier? To be sure, allegations of petty rentier behaviour conform to the standard police-politician playbook that exists in every Indian city and is a comment on the pressures under which small businesses operate in the country. But it is remarkable that Mr Singh did not feel exercised enough to raise this issue through the year and a half that the MVA has been in power but did so only after he was transferred out.

If the reasons for Mr Singh’s new-found social conscience are open to question, the conduct of Mr Deshmukh, his party leader Sharad Pawar and, indeed, Shiv Sena Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, is reprehensible. Whatever Mr Singh’s motives — and the MVA has been quick to question them — the allegations against Mr Deshmukh are serious. He should have been asked to step down pending a full enquiry. Mr Pawar suggested the highly respected former Mumbai police chief Julio Ribeiro, who is 92 years old, to conduct an investigation, which he declined. Nor has Mr Thackeray availed himself of the opportunity offered by a request from Mr Deshmukh to investigate the allegations against him. A commission of enquiry under the eponymous Act is available to him to do so. To date, the response from the political leadership has been one of defiance. First, within days of a new police commissioner being appointed, 86 Mumbai police persons were transferred, and 65 of them are from the crime branch. As for Ms Shukla’s allegations, the state home ministry has chosen to focus on the fact that the wiretaps on which she based her facts were illegal (and appears to be the reason for her transfer). This may be true but a procedural lapse still does not address her key charges.

From the energy that former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has launched himself into the controversy, it is clear that he senses an opportunity to regain a position that slipped out of his hands. By choosing to close ranks rather than do the ethical thing, the MVA is making things easier for him.