HYDERABAD: At a time when Telangana police’s cordon and search operations are coming under public scrutiny for being invasive and for unethical use of law, it is revealed that the Hyderabad police deployed a whopping 5,306 police personnel and conducted around 41 cordon and search operations over a five-year period between 2015 and 2019. Interestingly, they registered only 25 FIRs after these operations, which were restricted to just six police station limits.
This data was revealed in a series of RTI replies to activist SQ Masood, who sought responses from all the 60 law and order police stations. Even more interesting is the fact that among the cases booked, majority of them were of less gravity like food adulteration (two cases), objectionable ads of magic remedies (two), making atmosphere noxious (one) and concealing presence etc under various sections of IPC and CrPC. Among the more grievous crimes detected were four child labour cases under IPC and JJ Act and one theft case under Section 379 IPC and six cases under Section 336 for causing rash acts endangering life. One case for carrying arms was also registered in Kalapathar police station.
This data gives steam to arguments of many civil rights activists, privacy and surveillance experts who have been calling cordon and search operations without any sufficient proof or merit as “illegal”. “I had sought the data from all police stations. However, the police from some stations denied saying that the individual’s privacy will be invaded or information sought does not appear to be for public interest. This is ironic because the whole act of cordon and search is invading people’s privacy,” emphasised S Q Masood.The police, however, maintain that these searches are carried out to prevent crime and help in lowering the crime rate as such cordon searches create a people-friendly policing environment.
However, if the sample size of six police stations is taken into consideration, the searches seem to be more in some areas and less in others. For instance, 13 searches, the highest number, were conducted in Rein Bazar police station, followed by Moghalpura (9), Mirchowk (8), Kalapathar (7). Three and two searches were conducted in Begum Bazar and Dabeerpura respectively.
“There is nothing legal in these searches which are becoming more and more intrusive over the years. Initially, they used to check outside the doors, summoning the boys in the house, and checking Aadhar cards and documents. Now these searches are conducted inside the homes, only to find nothing illegal but leaving the citizens in fear,” added Kaneez Fathima, a civil rights activist.