In Hyderabad, Police department is sleeping!!

Even as the Andhra-Telangana tussle continues to throw life out of gear for Hyderabadis, businessmen complain that making matters worse are the police personnel who are “taking sides” in the Andhra-Telangana tussle. They say that the cops’ biased behaviour is leaving them at the mercy of angry agitators and anti-social elements. In fact, in the last several days, there have been several allegations that cops stood by as mute witnesses even as activists pelted stones and attacked malls and establishments in the city.

Rama Rao, the owner of CMR shopping mall at Ameerpet, recalls how the cops silently watched when the mob attacked his mall. “The police force is here to protect us. We suffered a loss of Rs 4 lakh in the episode. Instead of taking aggressive action, cops were requesting the mob to stay away. If the police is so passive, who do we complain to?”

In fact, some cops have even been openly taking a regional stance instead of looking at things from the law and order angle. For instance, when activists attacked actor Mohan Babu’s children, the inspector of Pet Basheerabad police station said,

“I told Mohan Babu not to conduct shooting in our area. There are a lot of TRS leaders living here. The actors are from Andhra region and obviously there will be protests. They didn’t listen to us. They can’t shoot in Telangana from now on.”

Like him, most cops too are busy blaming the victims for the attacks they have suffered. Lakshmi Manchu, daughter of Mohan Babu, can’t agree more. “My shooting crew had to form a human chain to protect us. But the police broke that chain and showed the activists where we were. It was shocking.”

That’s not all. Cops are asking business establishments to shut down rather than taking on the agitators themselves. “We suffered a loss of Rs 50,000 when the mob pelted stones on the store. We felt helpless, cops too didn’t help,” says Indrasena Reddy, GM of Bajaj Electronics at Punjagutta.

“The city has suffered because of the inactive attitude of cops,” says Suraj Agarwal, owner of a few malls in the city. “There is no fear among law breakers because of the attitude of the police. Everyone is settling personal scores in the name of regionalism,” he adds.

The fact that many cops have been caught sending pro regional SMSes to each other has become a big cause for concern too. Sources say special forces are being imported from other states like Punjab and Karnataka only to ensure that there is an unbiased implementation of law and order.
The city police commissioner, B. Prasada Rao, however, claims that the police is objective. “We have arrested 200 people in the city for causing disturbance. There could have been a few stray cases where cops let their stance show. But we expect them to transcend such regional feelings and maintain law and order,” Rao says.