BANGALORE: Politics and voyeurism seems nothing new in a state like Karnataka where MLAs have been caught watching porn in the Assembly previously. Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Ravindranath, who was caught surreptitiously taking pictures of women in a café on his cellphone on Monday 26 has put the state government on the back foot. He resigned but the government is not satisfied with the reasons given. Ravindranath is requesting the state to accept his resignation and arrest him since he was booked for serious offenses .
Soon afterwards, Home Minister K J George called Ravindranath for a meeting to diffuse the situation but he didn’t bother to turn up. Instead he has challenged the police establishment to arrest him. The issue has become a police versus government, cleverly orchestrated by Ravindranath who is playing the caste card—that he is being persecuted because he was a Dalit. The incident has also somewhat polarized the state police cadre: on Wednesday hundreds of Karnataka State Reserve Police personnel and their families hit the streets in support of their boss, even bringing police buses, causing major embarrassment to the government. The police protests also spread to various districts of the state. The CM has promised an inquiry but the stalemate continues.
On 26 May, the woman, who is a freelance journalist and her cousin, employed with an IT company were having coffee at a café on Cunningham Road when a customer noticed a middle aged man taking their pictures on his cell phone and raised the alarm. The man tried to escape. The woman snatched his phone and discovered he had taken two pictures of her. There was uproar in the café, he was seized and cops were called. Ravindranath accuses the sub inspector who arrested him of roughing him up. Soon office politics came to play when Ravindranath accused the police commissioner Raghavendra Auradkar, of framing him because he was a Dalit, though it took four days for the case to be filed.
On Wednesday night, the state government hurriedly transferred Ravindranath without giving him a specific designation. Senior IPS officers who have served with him say Ravindranath is an emotional person and would break into tears when he felt hurt. “He is an upright officer and a man with conviction. Once he came to back to me in tears because he refused to compromise with his principles. I had given him some work, but even though it was nothing illegal he refused to act,’’ a retired DGP said. P Manivannan, IAS officer stated on a social networking site “We both worked together in Mysore briefly in 2008. I credit him with his extraordinary support during the 2008 elections in Mysore, which was appreciated by media and public. I found him to be simple, diligent, honest, frank, tough and unyielding to any pressure.”
Meanwhile, the CM has warned the officer not to cross the ‘lakshman rekha’, perhaps referring to a police officer crossing the government. It would take the CID 15 to 20 days to submit a report. Meanwhile, expect more surprises.