The Marad communal riots of 2002 and 2003, that shook the conscience of Kerala, had become a theme for several articles and movies.
However, it is the first time the riots have become the subject of a book for an IPS officer, who looks at the relationship between public events and police response. In the book ‘Public Events and Police Response: Understanding Public Order Policing in Democratic India,’ written by T K Vinod Kumar, who had served as the City Police Commissioner of Kozhikode during the riots, Marad clashes have found a place as a subject of case study on communal violence. Conducting a detailed study of the public-police interface is a Herculean task.
However, Vinod Kumar, who is currently Joint Director of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy, Hyderabad, in the book, looks at the relationship between public events and police response using the data of public events and advanced statistical analysis.
According to the data available with Oxford University Press, the publishers, the book which was published in March has received a good rating.
Five months after its release, the book has also found a place in Amazon.com’s best-seller rank list. Besides this, a British policing journal has reviewed the book and will publish the report on it soon.
“I wrote the book in an Indian context. However, many incidents which occurred in Kozhikode city during my tenure as City Police Commissioner have been included as case studies,” says Vinod. The IPS officer, who had served as IGP, (internal security), Kerala, and headed many investigations related to extremist activities, has great experience in handling key issues such as communal riots and terrorism.
“In my book, I have not looked at whether there was any lapse on the part of the police in taking timely, preventive and remedial action in dealing with the situation. I have examined the administrative response to communal riots and discussed how the response to communal violence springs from all levels of government,” says Vinod.
“The police response to the event is placed in the framework of situational crime prevention methods, peacemaking, and intensive policing,” he says. It took more than three years for Vinod to finish the book after conducting adequate research.