Bharat Rakshak

Ulsoor Gate police head constable Basavaraj and Roopa, a woman constable, were producing an accused person in the ACMM Court, when a group of about 20 advocates allegedly assaulted them, declaring that they had “taught the police a lesson and wouldn’t allow them to enter the court premises”.

Basavaraj told Deccan Herald: “A group of advocates surrounded us in the court corridors, when we were there to produce an accused in connection with a case. They abused us using foul language and repeatedly slapped me. When I fell down, they kicked me hard in the stomach and also tore my uniform.’

Basavaraj sustained injuries on the chin, nose, head and was shifted to the Mallya Hospital for treatment.

The advocates are also alleged to have manhandled the woman constable, Roopa. She later told the police that the men even tried to disrobe her.

An added provocation, it is learnt, was that the duo was from the Ulsoorgate police station, whose jurisdiction covers the City Civil Courts complex.

It may be recalled that Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central), Ramesh and Jitendranath, the then ACP Ulsoorgate sub-division were transferred based on the R K Dutta committee report. All the cases that were filed against the advocates in connection with the March 2 episode are being pursued by the Ulsoorgate police.

Khader Khan, who was being taken to the Court by the two assaulted police personnel, told Deccan Herald: “When I was being taken to the court, a group of 30-40 lawyers ran towards us screaming and took Basavaraj, who was holding me, aside and assaulted him. I was then with constable Roopa. The advocates behaved shabbily with the woman constable. In the melee, some men even suggested that I escape from police custody.’

A case has been registered at the Ulsoorgate police station under sections 353, 354, 506, 149, 142, 143, read with 149 IPC. Ravikante Gowda, DCP Central, said the advocate who led Tuesday evening’s assault was identified. Teams are on the lookout for him and others, and they would be arrested soon.

Police leadership confides that there is grave discontentment in the constabulary and the cops are enraged at the action against seniors on the basis of the R K Dutta report. They feel lawyers have gained the upper hand psychologically.

Padma, wife of Basavaraj, said the behaviour of the advocates was unacceptable and families of constables would launch a strong protest in the coming days. “We want all those lawyers involved in the incident to be arrested,” she said. Other family members demanded speedy action against the erring advocates.

“A section of advocates has created such a situation where no one can walk freely in the courts. Attacking a woman constable and trying to drag her indicates the level the advocates have stooped to,” said Abhishek, son of Basavaraj.

Many policemen, especially constables and sub-inspectors, vented their anger against ACPs and DCPs. They said the officers should experience the difficulties faced by the constabulary while on duty.

“It’s very easy to pass orders sitting in air-conditioned offices. Let DG&IGP Shankar Bidari, Police Commissioner B G Jyothi Prakash Mirji and CID DGP R K Dutta work at the ground level and experience injustice,” a few policemen said.

The bench struck down Bidari’s contentions “absolving himself of the responsibility” of atrocities by stating he was only deputy commander of the Joint Task Force of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to nab Veerappan and not “omnipresent and omnipotent like Saddam Hussain or Muammar Gaddafi.” “Though he was not one of them, if what the two women (tribals) have said in their affidavit is true, he is worse than them (Saddam Hussain and Muammar Gadaffi),” the court said in its acerbic observations.
The bench also came down heavily on the state. The chief minister, it said, should have studied the NHRC report before appointing Bidari.

"There will be high-handedness but there will also be respect and fear of the police as long as Bidari is the chief,” a Karnataka police officer said in a casual discussion last November as a battle picked up between Abdul Rehman Infant and Shankar Mahadev Bidari, the two most senior officers in the force, for the post of the state police chief.

Born on June 1, 1952, and appointed to the IPS in 1978, Bidari upstaged the more senior Infant — born on May 23, 1952, and a 1977 IPS appointee, to become the director general of police last year — only to be displaced last week by the Karnataka High Court, which also bracketed him with dictators like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi.

Over the years that Bidari has been in the Karnataka police, the odds had so far seemed in his favour at almost anything, whether it concerned awards and recognition, political backing, crime management, encounter deaths, terrorism operations or even corruption and violation of human rights.

One of Karnataka’s most decorated police officers, he has two President’s medals for gallantry — one for the killing of a Naxalite in the late 1980s and the second for the 1993 killing of a member of forest brigand Veerappan’s gang.

According to records compiled for his tenure as STF chief, 56 members of the gang were killed in encounters, 120 were captured and five committed suicide as the gang was reduced from nearly 180 to less than a dozen leading to its elimination in 2004.

On the flip side, forensic and ballistic accounts compiled for a National Human Rights Commission inquiry for that period reveals that many of the “encounter deaths” involved shootings at point-blank range. NHRC inquiries have also found that the police brutalised people living in the forests — through rape and violence — to get to Veerappan. It is the NHRC findings that have resulted in the High Court declaring Bidari ineligible for the post.

Bidari’s argument was that he cannot be held responsible for the atrocities during the operations since these also involved senior officers like Walter Dawaram on the Tamil Nadu side, other seniors on the Karnataka side, and the state government.

In a tenure lasting over two years, he supervised the return of police encounters in the city and the killing of half a dozen people linked to various mafia groups.

The talk in police circles during that period was that the commissioner was in favour of “encounters” to eliminate “dangerous criminals” and that he would back his officers to the hilt. City police officers were vying with each other to notch up encounters during that period.

The unofficial story at the time was that the sons of top ministers and their aides were upset that Bidari was rarely giving them a hearing. According to sources, one of these sons wanted tickets to a cricket match and got his personal assistant to call Bidari, who allegedly did not mince words in telling the secretary to buzz off. “Though he held the minister himself in high regard, he had little respect for his sons and their hangers-on and this led to a lot of friction since the sons were always making demands,” a source said.

In another incident that is believed to have led to Bidari’s exit, he allegedly put the teenage son of another top minister in his place for slapping a traffic policeman who hauled had him up for a traffic violation.

Though vilified by many for his human rights record and self-aggrandisement, Bidari has over the years enjoyed the support of a large section of the men he commanded on account of his readiness to back them to the hilt. A recent series of violence between lawyers and policemen in Bangalore, which led to an 18-day strike by lawyers, is seen as being linked to the tough, no-nonsense image that the state police police chief sent down the line.