Menon bull’s-eye: Holes in the system

As per procedure, a list of criminals to be brought from district jail to the courts is prepared every day by the office of the Senior Prosecution Officer (SPO), which gets the information from jail. This then goes to the SSP’s office. The SSP’s office then sends this information to the District Crime Record Bureau (DCRB), from where directions are sent to police lines to provide security escort for an accused as per his notoriety and threat level.

But the system, concede senior officials, works only in name. ‘‘Neither the SSP’s office nor DCRB authorities are informed. Just a list of names come and hence ordinary security goes as escort with every criminal, irrespective of the threat level,’’ say officials.

While no officer at the SPO was willing to comment on the Menon episode, Lucknow SSP Kamal Saksena minced no words. ‘‘I did not receive any information from the SPO’s office on Menon’s court hearing,’’ he says.

Constable Dev Kumar Shukla, who was escorting Menon and was shot at by him, admits they had no idea how dreaded a criminal he was. Recuperating at Balrampur Hospital, he says: ‘‘We did not know Menon had a history of escaping from police custody.’’ Menon, in fact, has given them the slip at least thrice.

Such was the laxity that the constables never bothered to apply for permission from court to handcuff Menon. They even allowed him to make a call from a PCO on the court premises, after which he, his lawyer and the policemen sat down for a cup of tea. Police today said Menon may have obtained the .9 mm pistol he used for his escape from an accomplice inside the PCO. Such a favour by police is completely illegal, senior officials concede.

What followed was that Menon came out of the PCO, threw hot tea in Constable Shukla’s face and fired his way to freedom.