There are two types of crime - Mahabharata or Ramayana
Albeit in jest, but when I joined in the field, fresh out of the academy, I was firstly made to understand that crimes can be classified into two categories: Ramayana type and Mahabharata type. I probed deeper trying to fathom the mind of this wizened sub-inspector whose lessons were making all my knowledge of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) fly right out of the termite-eaten window of the strange police station with pan-stained walls. (It took a lot of good ol' shramdan and some new fangled swacchh bharat to finally get the marks of the betel chewer out of there; and after a while the police stations seemed less and less strange and more like home.) What do Ramayana and Mahabharata have to do with crime? I asked the same question that's running through your mind.
To say the least, Ramayana loosely meant cases involving crimes against women and Mahabharata roughly covered all land disputes. I heard that from the junior officer and I was enlightened. Pretty much all cases involve crimes against the body and crimes against property as we were made to understand and memorise in the academy. Two of such representative crimes in each category that have left an impact on my day to day functioning as a cop are prostitution and theft.
Prostitution brings in a lot of old debates: legalisation and the morality involved to name the prominent ones. There was a senior officer who told me to have a heart for that woman who sold herself to put food on the table of her kids. A weak argument I think because the laws can not be selective. However there are safeguards to women who are victims of such crime now. This is a crime prevention avenue perhaps we as cops have failed.
On one hand there are various schools of thought which advocate a watch of such dens as it is frequented by criminals, and on the other hand the society wants the state to be rid of such a demeaning life to women. Between both the hands that clap or don't; it's the police who are at the wrong end. In my experience this activity gains ground when there are many unattached males, namely soldiers, riflemen, constables of large organisations posted for counter insurgency or flash violence or for elections.
In fact, once to ensure that I didn't have to spend too much time cleaning up after the boys deployed for elections, I called their commandant over and told them that the area where they were deployed was notorious for cases of HIV+ve. Since then I've been teaching my juniors to spread the word and we then proceed to have a more comfortable time concentrating ion the job at hand instead of internal discipline and administration. There are misses though.
Sometime back, a man ran amok and shot two persons dead simply because the girl had agreed for Rs 300, but then took all of Rs 900 out of his wallet when he was still in the state of undress. It took a lot of doing to ensure that the city did not burst into flames following such a heinous crime. In another instance, a contract killer befriended a lady of the night and started living with her for nearly a year. This woman was then used to honey trap one of her regulars.
Some pseudo cops were also used who had barged in to their room catching them in flagrante delicto. They told the man that he was being arrested; being a renowned crook, he thought he'd be taken to the police station where he could bribe his way out. Fate had something else in store for him; in the next few hours he was taken to a remote area and shot dead while his family was dragged for a ransom drop until a week after. As for us investigating, the breakthrough came on the tenth day when we homed into another lady of the night. That unravelled the pieces leading to recovery of the body and arrest of all the accused. I must say, one of the worst moments of my life was telling the son and wife that the victim was no more.
Theft hit me a little closer home. My mother's house got burgled a couple of months ago. And everyone has been asking me about it. As if my profession has anything to do with providing an instant kavach against such crimes to everything connected to me especially my near and dear ones akin to the Salman test by good night mosquito repellent.
The last few weeks have witnessed a new trend of news reporting in the electronic media: thefts and other crimes those are directly connected to the police; that is caused by a cop or caused to a cop or his family. One of the worst forms of crime that breeds a phenomenal amount of insecurity in the society is theft. The Indian laws however have defined these crimes against property as theft, robbery, burglary, dacoity and dacoity with murder. Each has its own set of parameters in terms of gravity of the offence and punishment. The procedure for investigation is pretty much the same though.
Investigation is the process which takes place post-facto. If one has to look into the preventive actions against this crime against property then there is a lot left to be done. For that the simple requirements of the police are men and material.
I must say that when I walked into the house and saw the signs of breaking in and theft, I was overwhelmed with a sense of violation and insecurity. This was my childhood home and no one has entered it uninvited and here it was today in this state. The cocoon of comfort and the mental sense of possession were affected by this event. Thankfully, when it happened both my parents were living with me and there was no damage to life but only to property.
Books, papers, clothes all strewn about and rejected by the thieves had to be picked up. Must say, it was a singularly gut wrenching exercise to put everything back knowing full well that it was handled by a stranger whose touch was unwelcome.
I guess classification is very personal, unless it is the periodic table. Crimes are thus of two types: ones that happen to us and the ones which do not concern us at all. And therein lays the whole world of difference.
As police officers, the only training required is to imbibe the thought that all crimes occurring within our jurisdiction are to be pursued with the passion as though they have occurred to us and with the professionalism demanded to investigate crimes.