BENGALURU: The dark has once again begun to hold terror for Bengaluru city, not from vagrants and muggers but from an organised gang. Our cops, like the jellicle cats, come out at night and stalk easy prey. From beat policemen who extort money from couples returning home, to patrol teams who throw a net around unsuspecting youngsters, the stories are many and varied. Which is why young Nikhil is traumatised by the sight of a police station. The teenager spent almost 20 hours in one, wondering what wrong he had done. That he was locked up with his friends was his only comfort.
Nikhil’s story is both believable and unbelievable. The modus operandi runs something like this: A delivery boy, or a young thug dressed as one, picks a fight with youngsters on the road, and stalls them long enough for night patrol policemen to reach the spot. The cops bundle them off to the police station, confiscate their mobiles and lock them up. The mobiles are switched off, and no one is the wiser as to what happened in those hours.
The first call goes out in the morning, and the drama begins. The teenagers are packed off for a narcotics test to a local lab, worried parents rush to the station, and a friendly neighbourhood media person saunters in, armed with a mike and camera. The stage is set. The Aryan Khan case is dangled like a Damocles’ sword over the parents’ heads.
Even a star’s son had to spend over 20 days in jail, they remind the parents, and indicate that the helpful journalist standing nearby could blow the case sky-high. Doubts are cast on the use of alcohol and weed, but the test results remain shrouded in secrecy. A hard deal is struck; everything depends on how affluent the parents are. Or how panicky. Reputations are at stake....what will people say?
In Nikhil’s case, he and his group were returning home from a birthday party after midnight, a few in a car and a pair on a bike when the delivery boy appeared. During the surprise scrap, the thug managed to grab a mobile and rode straight to the police station, the teenagers in hot pursuit. He had got them neatly into the trap. The policemen took over, locked the car and bike, manhandled the boys and slapped them with assault charges.
Saturday nights offer rich pickings, with quiet Sundays open for great deals. It seems like a movie, with our cops having perfected the script: there’s drama, fear, blackmail, extortion. Not a thought is given to the abuse of the uniform, or the juveniles’ rights, or the ordeal that the parents and kids are put through. At the end of the day, what matters is how much moolah comes in. From playing cops and robbers, it’s now a game of cops playing robbers.