In the granite corridors, morale hits rock bottom

Within the next 10 minutes, as the arrest is confirmed, the 100-odd employees in the office go from nervous to shocked, disbelieving and finally gloomy.

It seems to be the culmination of a long, painful churning in the police force that began several months ago.

Starting January, the Anti-Corruption Bureau has arrested as many as 42 policemen in various cases of corruption.

On January 7, one of the accused in the two bomb blasts of December 2002 went missing under highly suspicious circumstances as he was being ferried to Aurangabad.

The escorting policemen emerged miraculously unscathed from an accident saying Khwaja Yunus had escaped, but his parents screamed murder.

There was more — a clutch of acquittals in various cases being investigated by the Mumbai Police, foremost being that of seven Chhota Shakeel men charged with conspiracy to assassinate Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani. Even the trial court castigated the police for lax investigation.

Ask the journalists. Regular press briefings are now a thing of the past, and many agree this is an indicator of an abysmal crime detection rate.

And four days after the biggest egg yet to be sploshed over the Mumbai Police’s face took its toll, the mood behind the granite walls of the police headquarters at Crawford Market hasn’t changed.

The decimation of the underworld, of sensational murders solved and rackets busted are a fading memory.

There’s a palpable nervousness along corridors leading to senior officials’ offices.

The Sword of Damocles has reduced dozens of policemen — including a handful of senior ones — to ask every reporter if there’s any ‘‘inside information’’ on who’s next on the Special Investigation Team’s hitlist.

In fact, share a cutting chai with any policeman and it’s almost certain that the subject will be broached: ‘‘You reporters visit scores of government offices. You must have some tip-off, no?’’

If they’re not wary, they’re unhappily curios — how much moolah did additional director general of police Shridhar Vagal and assistant police inspector Dilip Kamath share? Are there bureaucrats and ministers lined up to bite the dust next? Of course, a few thousand manhours are lost every day in discussing why only policemen are arrested.

Clearly, nobody expected the Special Investigation Team’s probe to take such a serious turn. ‘‘Initially, they thought the Telgi money was just like some other hafta, which is not too uncommon among many policemen,’’ says one senior officer.

But police commissioner Dr Parvinder Singh Pasricha is reassuring. ‘‘The police system is strong enough to withstand such shocks,’’ he insists.

But he admits that tackling inconvenient questions causes much discomfort. ‘‘People ask all kinds of questions. Sometimes, they are sarcastic,’’ he says, adding however that the Mumbai Police ‘‘is not a one-man force’’. There are joint commissioners, deputy commissioners and an assorted lot doing their jobs diligently, he asserts.

A senior inspector in the Crime Branch admits that his unit has failed to give their best after the lid on the Telgi scam blew this June. No major cases have been detected since, the officer points out, adding that his seniors have been deferring decisions.

But Crime Branch chief Joint Commissioner of Police Dr Satya Pal Singh refutes the allegations. ‘‘True, it is indeed a sad commentary on the department. But it certainly doesn’t have any impact on the functioning of the Crime Branch,’’ he says.

Still, you can’t miss the general despondency in the force. ‘‘I have nothing to do with the scam, but I’m still depressed,’’ confesses an ‘encounter specialist’.

Back at the office of the DCP (Traffic), as the television blares details of who’s escorting R S Sharma to Pune, there’s a newsreel at the bottom of the screen. It says Monica Bedi may be extradited.

‘‘They’ll send her. And then she’ll come here and get acquitted,’’ says one havaldar glumly, switching channels.