Noida Killings: Does Anyone Care For The Common Man?

The gruesome killing of children and women in Noida has jolted the conscience of the nation. Although the accused Moninder Singh Pandher and his accomplice Surendra Koli are undergoing brain-mapping and lie detector tests, there are several questions that remain unanswered, the biggest one being the role of the police force which showed no empathy towards the victims only because they were not some high profile citizens with no contacts.

After the arrest of the main accused and his accomplice, the UP chief minister patted the back of the state police for cracking the case but was it not the case police which showed complete lack of duty by refusing to entertain the families of the victims. But then, as it emerged in the Nithari case, the police is often not just guilty of dereliction of duty, but is also identified as having a significant nexus to the accused.

There is no doubt that the people have lost trust in the present police system. Its the same story with all police forces across India. Instead of showing empathy towards a common man, the police act as a bully. People are scared to walk into a police station to even lodge a complaint. Small routine activities involving the police like passport verifications are not done without exchanging money. Interestingly the Supreme Court had directed the state and the central governments to take certain steps which would put policing on a different track altogether but no state government has come up with any plans whatsoever. Most of the ex-cops do agree that our police system needs an immediate overhaul but during their tenure in service, they were no different. It seems like at the end of the day no one is accountable.

The government meanwhile thinks that Rs 5 lakh compensation, a plot of land and a government job in this heap of pain and grief would be enough to heal the wounds of the suffering families but what they do not understand or don’t want to understand is that the countless dead and their families want justice if anything.

Some months back when CEO of Adobe India Naresh Gupta's son was kidnapped in Noida, the same police machinery was running up and down to ensure the safety of the kid but when it comes to normal people, the same police machinery fails to get its act together. We talk of India as a developed nation in the coming decade and booming economy and flashy statistics but when it comes to justice for an ordinary citizen, we tell them to shut up as all this is just another small incident. It’s evident that government services and infrastructure to people from different segments is not equitable in our country.

India is certainly passing through a nexus of Criminal, police, political and Bureaucratic age and the only hope for ordinary citizens is the Media. With the new media in place it is time to start a full fledged attack on the corrupt and criminal behavior of the men who had sworn to be the protectors.