CHENNAI: In two recent cases of alleged official apathy leading to death of two persons in separate incidents, the action of the police has come under the scanner. The first instance is of 23-year-old techie Subashri’s death due to falling of an illegal banner at Pallikaranai. The police are yet to arrest one Jayagopal inspite of booking him for an offence of culpable homicide. In the other case, a driver died after an electric pole fell on him at Chitlapakkam.
Around 4,000 banners were removed in Chennai, within five days of Subashri’s death on September 12. The banner printing units were sealed. The lorry driver who ran over the techie was arrested. A corporation engineer was allegedly assaulted when the civic body tried to remove a banner at Nandanam. Every political party and organisations have issued a circular not to put up banners during celebrations.
But the man who was allegedly responsible for putting up the banners is yet to be arrested, it is pointed out. While the investigating officer says they could not trace him, police sources say he has been admitted in a hospital allegedly to escape detention. Jayagopal’s whereabouts is still a mystery.
Meanwhile, St Thomas Mount traffic investigation wing has named Jayagopal and Meganathan in the case registered. The Pallikaranai police has registered a separate case under Prevention of Disfigurement Act.
“Whenever it comes to booking those in power, the police fail because their position is more sacred than that of the victims because we are always taught to accept that as reality,” says K Baskaran, an advocate. He says the police were quick to arrest the truck driver Manoj Yadav, who would not have run over the girl if the banner had not fallen.
“If not for the media intervention and public outrage, Jayagopal would not have been even booked by Chennai police,” said a police source. Meanwhile, on September 15, Sethuraj, a van driver, died after an electric pole fell in front of his house while he was feeding stray dogs. The complaint copy mentioned that the pole was damaged and demanded action taken against those responsible.
Interestingly, the police filed a case under section 174 (unnatural death) CrPC and have not changed the legal provision yet. “There is no need to change the section since it is completely an accident and no one is accountable for this,” says Inspector Thanaselvan from Chitlapakkam.“Police filing section 174 soon after an accident, though the complainant has alleged involvement of an unknown person, is completely normal and not against the law. The issue is when the police do not probe the case further. This they do often when the case involves government officials and bureaucrats. They use the section as a means to shield criminal negligence,” says KM Vijayan, an advocate.
V Suresh, an advocate and secretary of PUCL, says the entire chain of command has to be prosecuted. This is because more often lower level workers get booked and imprisoned. The police will file an unnatural death case since cases like these are not intentional, he says. “An individual citizen who is already grieving because of the demise of a person will not file a complaint asking police why they have not booked any official responsible. This is a loophole that is used to escape being held accountable,” says the advocate.