Unravelling the nexus between criminals, politicians and cops
The discovery of a letter that slain Deputy Superintendent of Police D K Mishra wrote, in which he complained of links between his own policemen and runaway gangster Vikas Dubey, only underlines the extent of the criminal-police nexus in Uttar Pradesh. The links Dubey had with the police helped him to not only run his crime machine unhindered, but there is growing evidence that he was tipped off by some policemen about the botched-up raid to arrest him.
The alert helped Dubey give the slip while his henchmen laid an ambush for the raiding police team, leaving eight of them dead. The ongoing Dubey saga is only one more instance of a criminal’s links with law enforcement agencies. The crime world is replete with examples of gangsters thriving with the help of the police. Their links are only strengthened by politicians who use these criminals for their own political ends. It is no secret that during elections, politicians and politician-criminals take the help of gangsters to influence and threaten voters.
Once elected, these criminals have a free run, aided and abetted by the elected representative. Dubey’s crime and political graph falls exactly in that pattern. He started off as a petty criminal and soon began to dabble in politics, getting elected several times at the panchayat level. This strengthened his bond with the police. The criminal-politician-police nexus is not something new. The links between them have been well documented not only by scholars and researchers but even by the government.
In the early nineties, the government had appointed a committee headed by N N Vohra, then a serving bureaucrat, to suggest ways to deal with this menace. In its report, the committee highlighted how many criminals were running a parallel government and blamed the existing criminal justice system for failing to effectively prosecute these goons. It suggested several measures to break the nexus. The highest court of the land has also passed several orders but they have not had any salutary effect. This is clearly because there is hardly any political and administrative will. Unless there is willingness on this front, Vikas Dubeys across India will continue to thrive.