BENGALURU: The State government has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the 2023 alleged voter theft case at the Aland Assembly in Kalaburagi. The case was being investigated by the CID after an FIR was registered by the Electoral Registration Officer, Aland in February 2023 till it was handed over to SIT last weekend.
The constitution of SIT to investigate complex, ‘sensitive’ and ‘politically important’ cases is not new to this government, but the ‘trend’ of rolling out a team of officers to investigate every such case is a setback to the mandate and sanctity of the CID, which was created as a niche investigating wing (then Corps of Detectives) of the Karnataka police.
The concept of an SIT was rolled out in the mid and late 90s for very few and selective cases. The objective was to cull out a team of police officers and task them with special investigation, away from their regular duties of law and order till the completion of the investigation. SIT, the setting up of which is the government’s prerogative, has now become a routine affair.
“Officers are handpicked for various reasons such as domain knowledge, expertise, knack of investigation, track record. Trust plays a major role in cherry-picking the team,” said some retired police officers, who didn’t wish to be named.
“It also puts the team under the spotlight and pressure, and in extremely sensitive cases, it can be a test of their integrity. Investigation is a subtle art but requires a certain aptitude and courage to make it a fool-proof case that can withstand the scrutiny of the courts,” they added.
The CID was set up in 1974 to investigate “important major cases, economic and financial offences which would require special knowledge of law and investigation and achieve maximum result in crimes detection, thereby instilling confidence and good faith among the public in police”.
CID has undergone major changes; from 2009 to now, from its nomenclature to its organisational set-up, leadership, training and specialisation, mostly in dealing with specialised crimes like cyber, economic offences, etc.
“Constituting an SIT for every such case that the government perceives as sensitive or carrying political heft is also reflective of the government’s loss of faith in the institution; in this case, the police, especially the CID and trust in select few.
This not only puts pressure on the latter as they begin to be looked at differently by their own colleagues; it will also have a cascading impact, resulting in loss of morale in the rest of the cadre. Police are the face of the government. It should help strengthen and restore its image, which has been built over the decades under the vision and guidance of senior police officers from the Indian Police Service (IPS) and the state cadre,” they added.