Freedom, above all

In a chilling operation on Sunday night, members of the Punjab Police spirited away Indian Express reporter, Gautam Dheer. Incidentally, Dheer’s report in the Sunday morning paper had framed questions about the conduct of a senior Punjab Police officer in the rape case in which he is now himself sought to be implicated by the police. On Monday the reporter was released and the state’s chief minister promised an urgent inquiry headed by the home secretary into the arbitrary arrest and action against the guilty. It is reassuring, this evidence of the Amarinder Singh government’s sensitivity to the widespread outrage, especially from within the media, which immediately greeted the Punjab policemen’s act of taking the law into their hands. But beyond the immediate relief, questions persist.

How is it that a team of Punjab policemen could barge into the reporter’s house in Panchkula in neighbouring Haryana in the first place, and proceed to break every other rule in the book? The cops, some in uniform and others dressed in civilian clothes, did not identify themselves; they mentioned no reason for the arrest; possessed no warrant or court order; did not allow Dheer access to a lawyer for long hours; kept his whereabouts a secret from family and colleagues into the night. Did the policemen think they could get away with this? Though that calculation has now been proved to be vastly misjudged, what does it tell us about the prevailing culture in which the Punjab police operates? The state’s police is yet to shake off many of the ugly allegations that attached themselves to the force during its tortured fight against terrorism in the ’80s. More than the specific cases of misconduct, it is now acknowledged that the ’80s may have left behind a deeper taint. In other words, a culture of unaccountability and high-handedness. A de-institutionalisation that has seeped long and deep and which now calls for a determined drive to redress and rebuild.

Only a police force that believes it is above the law could have administered the midnight knock on the media’s door. The errant officer and his men should be told in no uncertain terms that the freedom of the press is enshrined in the Indian Constitution: it cannot be trifled with, in arrogance or in recklessness. Something valuable would have come out of this sorry episode if that realisation sinks in.