TIRUNELVELI: IF the job of a policeman is to eliminate crime and not the criminal, Assistant Commissioner S Sekar is the kind of hero the department needs now more than ever. On Friday, Sekar had a special visitor -- Murugan, who runs a tiny soup shop in the city. What connects the police officer with a roadside vendor: crime.
Exactly two decades ago, Sekar and Murugan met for the first time. The former was a sub-inspector back then, and the latter a history-sheeter. Due to his involvement in many minor cases, the police had been on the lookout for Murugan for 17 long years.
It was SI Sekar who spotted the absconding ‘criminal’. Even by the time they met in 1999, Murugan had come out of his past life. He was working at a soup stall in Idaikal, as a daily wage labourer. Sekar was convinced that Murugan had reformed. He helped Murugan get a Good Conduct Certificate. What takes around six months to process, happened much faster for Murugan.
It gave Murugan a fresh start. He became a fulltime soup vendor. Meanwhile, Sekar left the city to take on different roles. Twenty years passed by. Recently, Murugan saw in the papers that Sekar was returning to Tirunelveli, this time as an Assistant Commissioner.
"I did not expect him to remember me after all these years," says a beaming Sekar. "When I met him in 1999, he was working hard to feed his family. Usually, such suspects are kept in custody for 6 months before being given a conduct certificate. When I saw Murugan, I knew he had reformed. I have been proven right.”