NEW DELHI : Northeast Delhi was, last week, rocked by violence and arson that killed as many as 42 and injured more than 300. Delhi Police faced severe flak for failing to contain the violence and National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval stepped in to supervise the situation on the ground. Neeraj Kumar, former Delhi Police commissioner, weighs in on what ails Delhi Police and what can be done to rectify the situation.

Are the events that took place in northeast Delhi and earlier in Jamia Millia Islamia and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) reflective of the ineptitude of the Delhi Police?

Most certainly. The force has not slipped up suddenly. It has been happening for a while. You may recall the police-lawyer clashes at Tis Hazari court, followed by the police action in Jamia and what happened in JNU, and then Shaheen Bagh where protestors were allowed to have a sit-in. They could have been removed at the very first instance. Now the riots in northeast Delhi. It is not as if it’s a one-off event. It has been going on for a while.

Has the fact that the police has been accused of excesses in Jamia and JNU caused a trust deficit between the people and the police because the police’s image now stands tarnished?

Police cannot enter a university campus. They cannot enter without informing the vice chancellor. It’s a matter of courtesy and protocol and it is not done even when things are out of control. However, when people are indulging in violence, then the police is fully justified in entering any university campus. However, what followed, the police entering the library and using batons, could have been avoided. If the idea was to pick up people who had indulged in violence outside, then they could have been overpowered by the police and taken out instead.

These incidents have happened because with these groups of policemen there were no immediate senior officers who would direct them on what to do or what not to do. What happens in a major law and order situation is mobs disperse into small groups and they spread out over a wide area and the police also get divided into small groups to chase those people. All that resulted in those groups of policemen being unsupervised and there was no senior policeman to take charge of the policemen who had entered the library.

This is lack of leadership and lack of direction. Every group is supervised by at least an assistant commissioner of police who gives orders on whether to resort to lathi charge or whether to arrest.

So is there a clear leadership crisis?

Yes. What has happened in northeast Delhi has been a culmination of the downslide observed over several months. Surely when police demonstrations had taken place in November and when the commissioner of police (Amulya Patnaik) had come down to pacify his men and he was heckled, the incident should have been taken note of seriously by the government. This is a very serious incident . In a regimented force, if the rank and file revolts against you, it means you have lost the confidence of your own people. However, the government glossed over this as though nothing had happened. So what followed after that, whether in Jamia or JNU or anywhere else, was only to be expected.

Is there a radical overhaul needed within Delhi Police?

The Union home ministry has provided Delhi Police with enough manpower, vehicles, and equipment. There is no dearth of infrastructure or wherewithal to deal with difficult situations. Delhi Police is a fairly pampered force in India. However, when there is a crisis of leadership and the man at the top is not a good leader, the force is bound to capitulate in the face of a crisis. I don’t blame the force here, but I do believe the government should be held accountable for selecting someone who did not have an impressive record of policing or law and order.

What do you suggest?

In this case, the morale of officers depends on the man at the top. His persona and style of working percolates down. If he is decisive, if he is confident, if he gives clear orders on how to deal with a particular situation, the force is always better prepared. If the force knows that if something goes wrong, the boss will look after the situation and not let those below him to take the hit that is when the force can deal with a situation with utmost self-confidence. Then they do what is required to be done. Delhi Police is not new at dealing with law and order situations. They deal with hundreds of such situations in a year and so many law and order situations have been handled perfectly in the past.

This time the National Security Advisor has had to step in. What does that say?

If you turn to the ministry of home affairs (MHA) for every decision before making any move, there is bound to be intervention. If you don’t keep taking orders at every turn of events, then the MHA desists from micromanaging. So if you deal with a situation correctly, they don’t interfere. In my tenure as commissioner of police, I did not turn to anyone for directions, not even the lieutenant governor. P. Chidambaram and then Sushil Kumar Shinde were the home ministers and Tejinder Khanna was the lieutenant governor and I did not consult either, not even during the investigations into the 16 December gang rape. That was a particularly trying time for us and the force, and we had to use force to disperse the crowd when protests broke out. I gave the orders and I have admitted it in as many words.

I had given a free hand to my officers saying that if you are at the spot, use your judgment and do what needs to be done. If you are not able to decide and you need my help, then refer the matter to me. When the people on the ground dithered from using force to remove the agitating crowd that is when I had to step in.

The Delhi Police is a commissionerate system of policing and when it comes to law and order, there is a unified command and control system and you don’t have to look up to any magistrate and you are on your own. First you do what is needed to be done and then inform the top brass. For every little thing, if you look up to your bosses for a command, that is where micromanaging starts.

The sending of the NSA is a very poor reflection on the police leadership. That means the top leadership has failed and someone else has had to step in.

Delhi Police has always been caught in the tussle between the state and central governments. Does that add to the complexity of the situation?

Delhi is the national capital. In almost all countries with governments that have a federal structure, the capital of the country is run by the federal government, whether it is Washington DC, London, or Canberra, for the simple reason that the capital city has very unique features. Every now and then there is a head of state that visits, people are holding demonstrations and reactions from across the country are felt in the capital. So, it has to have a direct line of control. That is why there is a commissionerate system and the state government has been kept out of it so that there is no issue of command and control.

If, for example, the Delhi government had control of the police, and on the side if it has an ongoing tussle with the Centre, it can choose to say that it won’t provide security to the VIPs who live in Delhi or any dignitary who is visiting. So, it is just as well that the police in the capital is not under the state government.

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