Majhi must contain rot in Odisha law and order machinery

The Mohan Majhi government has been at the receiving end for this deplorable incident.

Odisha CM Mohan Charan Majhi File photo

Sadly, police brutality is not new in India. But the assault on an army officer and the alleged sexual abuse of his fiancée in a police station of Bhubaneswar has certainly taken it to a new low. The couple, harassed by a mob after a road rage incident, walked into Bharatpur police station on the city’s outskirts to lodge a complaint and seek redress in the early hours of September 15. Hours later, the manner in which the two complainants ended up being booked themselves after having been illegally confined, humiliated and manhandled has left the country outraged and Odisha shamed.

When the protector turns predator on a justice seeker in a state capital, it symbolises that the law and order situation is in a perilous state. What happened with the army officer and the lawyer-restaurateur displayed the ugly innards of a system where the rot has set in for long. It was the previous BJD government that had systematically weakened the police machinery for its political interests. It created a parallel system and vested powers with a chosen few to run its dictum. Even police chiefs stopped to matter at some point of time. The structurally weak and unstable system was only waiting to implode.

The Mohan Majhi government has been at the receiving end for this deplorable incident. It has ordered a crime branch probe, suspended the errant officials and directed a judicial inquiry to be completed in 60 days. But it has clearly shown its ineptness on law and order. Busy fulfilling its election promises, it has grappled to contain multiple communal flare-ups and a spate of violent crimes. More than three months in the power now, it has not even been able to effect the customary reshuffle of senior police officials that has led to a precarious stagnancy across districts and major posts.

Blaming the previous government is not going to help the BJP administration on matters of deteriorating law and order. Its ecosystem’s attempt to deflect criticism by naming and shaming its own officers will not work either. It needs to take firm control of the system and provide direction. And for that, Mohan Majhi, who is also the home minister, must step up. He can barely afford another such disaster, as it reflects poorly on his party nationally, too.