Here is the link to the Indian Express News article:
Mumbai Police tie up with Orkut to nail offenders
An Excerpt:
Anti-Shivaji forums or anti-Ambedkar postings or “hate India” campaigns on Google’s social networking site, Orkut, have been confounding authorities for quite some time now. Other than blocking the objectionable forums, the Mumbai Police could do little, except wait for the next one to pop up on the web, say, a “fan club” of wanted underworld dons. The Mumbai Police is finally equipped to track down such offenders and bring them to book. A single e-mail between the DCP in charge of the Enforcement Branch and the California-based company will now nail such persons. Following a meeting between representatives of the site and the Enforcement Directorate last month, the Mumbai Police and Orkut have entered into an agreement to seal such cooperation in matters of objectionable material on the web.
Fantastic !! Except the Indian police have lived up to their reputation for being hare-brained, corrupt and torturous. To understand what I am saying, please read this story about Lakshmana Kailas, the Indian engineer who was arrested and tortured by the Indian police, who accused of him of defaming the long dead, but heroic Shivaji. Except, the police had the wrong guy.
Here is the picture of Lakshmana Kailas:
Here is the link to the story from TOI about his arrest:
Pune cops book Orkut user2 Sep 2007, PUNE:
A Bangalore-based computer engineer has landed in the police net after he allegedly uploaded a blasphemous matter about Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji on the social networking site Orkut. The cyber cell of city police, investigating the crime for the last ten months on a complaint registered by BJP workers here last November, zeroed in on the IT professional Laxman Kailas K and arrested him in Bangalore yesterday, police said. The accused who was brought to Pune subsequently has been remanded to police custody by a court here. Cyber crime squad of the police traced Laxman by contacting Google office in Banglore and further investigations into the matter revealed his Internet Protocol Address(IP), giving the sleuths clues about his telephone number. After Pune police pointed out the aberration on part of Laxman to Google office, the matter which he posted on the website on October 29 last using his PC at home, was removed.
Here is the link to his complete story from TOI:
MUMBAI: In the early hours of August 31, Lakshmana Kailash K was asleep at his home in Bangalore. He was woken up by eight policemen from Pune who came knocking on his door and waved the Information Technology Act, 2000, in his sleepy, terrified face. Get dressed, he was told, we are taking you to Pune for having defamed Shivaji. Lakshmana protested that he didn’t know anyone called Shivaji. The policemen said that they were talking about Chhatrapati Shivaji and that an insulting picture of him had been uploaded on the Internet networking site, Orkut. The trail had led them to his computer in Bangalore. Turning a deaf ear to his protests, the cops took him to Pune and put him behind bars. Along the way, the 26-year-old Lakshmana, who works with HCL, learned that what he was being arrested for was a case that had triggered riots in Pune in November 2006. Political parties had forcibly closed cybercafes and gone on a rampage over the posting of the illustration which had poked fun at Shivaji. Lakshmana was released after spending 50 days in jail, three weeks after the cops claimed to have nabbed the “real culprits”.
More links to this unfortunate story:
- http://news.monstersandcritics.com/india/news/article_1370919.php/Techie_jailed_due_to_Airtel_mistake_police_Lead_
- http://www.nartv.org/2007/11/07/google-handing-over-ips/
- http://www.indiauncut.com/iublog/article/just-one-bowl-for-lakshmana-kailash/
- http://committeetoprotectbloggers.org/2007/09/10/indian-orkut-user-arrested/
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THERE ARE LIES AND LIARS … BUT THE PRIZE GOES TO OUR POLICE!
There are a zillion articles, thesis, studies, and other offerings on the web, from “experts” as well as lay people, on police corruption; and just as varied suggestions on remedies. But these writings will no doubt continue to remain nothing more than of marginal academic interest because, like it or not, Corruption has become an integral part of our cultural fabric like Garam Masala and coconut hair oil. In fact, some would consider any REAL attempt to root it out as unpatriotic – even treasonous!
History stands in testament to the sad fact that, in real life, no amount of theory or “text-book” solutions could unclog the constipating hold on our ancestral value system once revered worldwide. You see, “How To” books, encyclopedias, universities, Police Academies, etc. just do not possess the wherewithal to teach ethics, integrity, and fundamental value expectations amounting to inter-personal decency. Either you have it or you’ve flushed it down the commode.
In my home, lying is a punishable crime. One learns very quickly you need several lies to support the first lie – and, when (not IF) your lie is discovered, the gravity of punishment increases proportionately. We endeavor to teach our children so and, reciprocally, set a like standard in our own personal dealings with others lest we appear as hypocrites.
A LIAR IS A LOWEST THIEF: he steals your trust, your confidence, your respect, and, undeservedly, claims for himself an honored place in society. When most have to earn that status through a lengthy, proven track record, some are anointed into that position, transformed as if magically by that Police uniform!
The uniform, however, has become nothing more than a deceptive placard declaring, “I am worthy of your trust, and this uniform says so”! The widespread farcical “investigations” and creative police reports belie that claim. Is there any redress when such officious lies stand repeatedly exposed as during the course of the numerous criminal trials throughout our nation? Has there been any occasion our anointed liars in uniform were ever taken to task? Or does the stench of perjury, more so by a public official, prompt no more cognizance than if it were just another mundane post-digestive gaseous extrusion emitted in court: certainly irritating but, mercifully, transitory – (unlike the lingering, asphyxiating pong of corruption)!
Ii is apparent that the courts have come to accept perjury as commonplace. One wonders what standard the judiciary conforms itself to; and whether, by this tolerant stance, the courts have given recognition to and condoned an unsanctioned privilege of the Police to taint judicial proceedings and impede the course of justice by lying with impunity.
Is lying ever justified when someone’s freedom, reputation, livelihood depends upon Truth? If the courts are not the last bastion of Truth, then is our criminal “justice” system indeed a sham as the world community purports it to be? (See Link: http://www.transparency.org/news_room/latest_news/press_releases/2002/2002_12_17_south_asia_survey
Does our younger generation deserve to inherit this disease from us?
Officials caught lying, had been lying for years. Such officials set a nefarious policy expectation up and down the chain of command. As for being censured or suspended for “Conduct unbecoming of a police officer”, this IS conduct one expects from government employees! See for yourself. The excerpt below is courtesy of The Times of India. Here’s the link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1462074,prtpage-1.cms
The individual below lied his way with the Home Minister and was promoted! Jai Hind! This certainly sets a frightening precedence in our struggle to re-establish National integrity and basic values.
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Negative test result nails DCP positively
24 Mar 2006, 0252 hrs IST , TNN
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HYDERABAD: Deputy commissioner of police (West) Amit Garg’s statement that Times of India journalist G Srikanth was “in an inebriated condition” when he was detained by the Punjagutta police station on Tuesday night was conclusively nailed by none other than home minister K Jana Reddy on Thursday.
Upon a query by the minister on Thursday, Gandhi Hospital authorities revealed to him the findings of the alcohol test conducted on the journalist at 2.30 am on Wednesday. The result: negative for alcohol.
As per the records of the Gandhi Medical Hospital’s casualty department, the result of the test for Medico Legal Case No. 6398 has been recorded as follows:
pupil mildly dilated alcohol breath — sluggishly reactive.
PR 84/min
BP130/80 mm/hg
H/L (heart/lung): NAD (no abnormality detected)
P/A: soft
The long dash in the first observation, signifying a negative result, has been circled. But true to the tradition of police procedure, all it takes to change the negative result to positive is to strike a vertical line dividing the dash.
If indeed the test had returned positive, as Garg has claimed, the doctors did not refer the journalist for a mandatory blood sample collection and a stomach wash-as should have been done as per standard procedure.
Instead, Srikanth was allowed to go home at 8.30 am after extracting a note from him in which he was made to say nothing about his manhandling at the hands of inspector Ranga Reddy and constable Mansoor Khan.
Garg’s policemen had in fact sought to turn the needle of blame on the Times staffer by accusing Srikanth of bashing up Mansoor Khan and making out a case of ‘obstruction of a public servant from performing his duties.
‘To support this fabrication, Mansoor Khan appeared with red colour smeared on his shirt. This begs the question how a lone bystander could have dealt bleeding injuries to a policeman who was accompanied by several of his colleagues and his superior officer right in front of the latter’s police station.
Before the fabrication of evidence was brought to the notice of Jana Reddy, his staff had been fed the notion by the police that the alcohol test had proved positive.
But upon TOI’s request, the home minister inquired with the Gandhi Hospital authorities about the result of the test. He was told in clear terms and detail that it had in fact been negative. Clearly, the home minister of the state had been fed a falsehood by the police.