A thankless job

Chintito

It has been gathered from sources highly confidential, possibly influential, above all prudential… it does not matter (Have you noticed how words qualifying a sly informer always end with a -shial? Foxy, eh!), that the police have evolved several innovative methods (this is the 'new-look' police we are talking about) to catch criminals. One would have preferred 'new-catch' because criminals are no longer bothered about being looked at.

In fact, with the amount of publicity the nabbed and the banned get on television, name boldly splattered on their chest, one criminal is known to actually keep a comb in his back pocket, just in case. Wait! The latest information is that he does not have the comb; his accomplice took it. He does not know when.

According to our BRP (Bangalee Resource Person) researchers in the police department have found out from reading newspapers regularly that most criminals get a qualitative title appended to their given name. And that is when Operation DMP took off; deshi murgi pakrao, that is.

To activate the highly secret mission, the department had to employ people with 'bhaab', colloquially speaking, actually it is VAV, vending as vocation, that is. Consistent with government rules, each of its agencies must advertise for every position of employment. And so the advertisement came out in several newspapers of the country stating that the police were looking to put into service people with such and such nationality, age, qualification, experience, and that sex was no bar. Some of the applicants misunderstand the last part (meaning the state of being male or female), but take it otherwise.

The essence of the mission is its innocence. It goes like this: A person with VAV wanders around different areas of the city and shouts out the name of whatever he is carrying in the basket on his head, or whatever he is peddling in his van that he could be pulling, pushing or pedalling.

For instance, a VIIP (vendor incorporated in police) selling chicken goes like this: murgi, ayeee murgeeee! And lo! Murgi Mohsin, fearing that he has his back to the wall, that the police in disguise have found him, comes out of hiding, hands held high. These hard nuts can deal with someone in uniform, but this vendor bahini was an unknown force. Much to the relief of the citizenry, similar has been the fate of Jambura Jamal, Goru Gobindo, Kamaluddin orofey Kagoj, and Chirunee Mukles.

A feather to the cap of our law enforcers is that the Indian Police are so impressed that they have bought the idea from their Interpol counterparts in Bangladesh and are now more or less certain that they will finally catch Hari Patil, a viscous interstate gang leader.

This SB (shouting business) is just one of the approved methods being employed to curb rising crime. There are several other schemes operating simultaneously, and that is why members of the underworld are nowadays eating cold legume (heem-shim khachche).

One of the more popular techniques is JCO (join the criminals openly). The idea is to find out the hideout of the lawbreakers and their masterminds by pretending to be one of them. So the police agent, as part of their assigned work, starts taking bribe, stops paying rent and tax, gets into the habit of drinking and gambling, engages in illicit relationships, and so on. It is in this situation that sometimes the police get the bad name, when with the help of local people some other police unit (unaware of the operation) catch the 'police' at work. You have seen news of police raping helpless damsels and snatching mobile phone from foreigners making the headlines. This last guy was on probation to join the international police HQs at Paris, and this was his last test assignment.

Unfortunately, some of these agents enjoy so much the new-found life of browsing www (wine, women and wealth) that they surrender to the hospitality of the gangland. That is the negative side of this laudable and courageous venture. The lesson is not about not to mix work with pleasure, but to know when you are late for work three days a week.

Another trick that the police have kept up their sleeve is a gold cufflink winner. Whenever there is a heist at a jewellery shop, you know the ones in which you only know how much gold was in that store after it is robbed; well, what the police does is actually organise these massive thefts. They have televised press conferences and the underworld wonders, fumes is a better word, 'who did it, if not us'. Then the law enforcers, always one step ahead although they are running behind the bad guys, sort of leak to the underworld where the booty is being stashed and when will it be divided. The growling godfathers of the ground below zero get news of it and demand a share. It is agreed after much haggling (all part of the acting and voice throwing training that the police go through) and when Big Daddy comes to collect, (whoa!) the police are there to nab him. Clever, what say you?

Despite such glory, there is a put-off question. Why is it that after nabbing so many criminals -- gaal kata, chyapta matha, teen angool -- there are still as many at large? The answer my friend lies in your general knowledge on demography. You see, as they nab some, there are others that are copulating, procreating, bringing up the children in their family tradition, undergoing training, and being inducted into operation. The police cannot do the same. They are not allowed to do such things while on duty. That is why some of them get caught in the wrong act. The fact is that when the comparison is not by efficiency but by numbers, the police are sidelined by sheer weight of the criminal population.

The police are taken for granted. That they are human too has been forgotten like some of their files. They have chosen to serve the nation, but the nation does not thank them often enough.
Thank you.

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