‘Delhi Police Is 200 Per Cent Impartial’

Sachidanand Shrivastava, a 1985-batch IPS officer, took charge as Delhi Police Commissioner in the middle of the February 2020 Nort-heast Delhi riots. Just a year into his stint, he has seen it all—the coronavirus crisis and the lockdown, the farmers’ protest, the storming of Red Fort on January 26 and sedition cases against several activists, including 22-year-old Disha Ravi. As Delhi Police grabs global attention, Shrivastava defends his force’s actions in an interview with Ruben Banerjee and Bhavna Vij-Aurora. Excerpts…

It has been baptism by fire for you as Delhi Police chief. There has been a perception over the last few years that Delhi Police is partisan. How do you react?

Delhi Police is certainly not partisan. It is very fair and its every action is supported by sound reasoning. I can tell you about the last one year since I have been here that we have come out strongly with all the decisions.

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Yet there is a growing perception...

I would like to add that Delhi Police has never taken a back seat. If it has to act, it has acted when it has to. It will not quietly gloss over a particular matter. If something wrong has occurred, it is duty bound to take legal action in the interest of the people of the country and in the interest of the law.

What about the Disha Ravi case? You have been getting bad press nationally and internationally…

Rather we are getting good press too. Let me explain the case. On February 3, a tweet was put out in which a toolkit was attached. The tweet was soon deleted but it left an electronic footprint. It talked about a Twitter storm for February 4 and 5, and a tweet bank was created that people were to use to put out their tweets. One of the tweets said that the police are using force, teargas etc., on peaceful demonstrators; many people have gone missing; one person has died; many have died. These were the tweets in the bank which were supposed to be used on February 4 and 5.

The whole intention of the group was to spread misinformation and create a situation that would adversely impact law and order of Delhi, that may lead to physical injuries and even deaths. We took action to register a case. From the technical investigation we got to know that the toolkit was created by Nikita Jacob and edited by Shantanu, then Disha Ravi and some other people.

The police team went to Nikita Jacob’s house and followed due procedure of investigation. She was questioned in the presence of her father and her electronic device seized. She was bound down, as per legal procedure, to remain present at her residence the next morning but she absconded, which she should not have. Shantanu was also absconding. Then the team went to Disha Ravi and similar procedure was followed and when there was sufficient evi­dence against her, she was arrested and brought to Delhi and produced before the court as per the law.

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But the court said the case is based on conjecture. What kind of evidence do you have against Disha?

It is dependent on the investigation, which is at the primary stage. It is not conjecture. By the information that is available one sees a design and a case is registered. Thereafter it is dep­endent upon the investigation that is carried out and the other evidence that is collected during the course of the investigation.  At the first stage, an FIR is registered after prima facie, a case is made out. Once registered, investigation follows...

She is also charged under sedition. Cases of sedition have a poor conviction rate. The point is that the process itself becomes the punishment...

We are not supposed to look into the history of sedition cases while registering a case. That is immaterial. Here, it was clearly made out that Disha Ravi and others were in touch with some anti-national organisations that propagate anti-India agenda. When you are interacting and working with common design or common purpose, obviously the case has been made of sedition. The whole case falls under the purview of sedition and waging war against the nat­ion. Different individuals will be charged with off­ences for which evidence is found against them.

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Let us discuss the other rec­ent cases. Do you think the Delhi Police acted fairly and effectively during whatever happened in JNU, Jamia and Delhi riots?

I would like to avoid commenting on the JNU and Jamia cases because I have not overseen them personally. Northeast riots, definitely. I joined on February 25 last year when the riots had already broken out. We were quickly able to bring the situation under control and then the process of restoring normalcy started. As many as 53 people had died, including two from police background; 581 were injured. Our primary task was to take cognisance of the complaints of the affected people. We registered 755 cases, which is unp­recedented in any riot in the country.

You may ask how does it matter. It only goes to show that we were ready to rec­eive complaints and we did not want to hush-up the matter. Another case was registered to unearth the underlying reason for such a riot. There was no simmering discontentment or prior Hindu-Muslim divide. It was an artificially created riot. So we registered a case of criminal conspiracy beh­ind those riots which is also being investigated.

When an action is taken many may ask questions. However, despite questions, the actions were fair and impartial because we entertained everyone’s complaint. You will see, the number of complaints coming from one particular community was much larger than the other community. Number two, the arrests were done from both the communities. There is nothing to suggest that it was not impartial. In fact, we used scientific methods in investigation because that is one thing nobody will doubt.

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Here again there is a perception that people who were protesting against the CAA are in jail. But nothing happened to those who were shouting ‘goli maaro saalon ko’. Wasn’t that inflammatory?

It’s quite unfortunate that everyone becomes an investigator and a judge. You do not believe the word of those who are actually inv­estigating but at least wait till the verdict comes from the court. Is it fair to question everything at every stage? Many statements of various hues were made by different people at that time. But we are investigating events that affected or led to the riots. We went about our investigation very logically, supported by scientific methods and evidence. It is supported by statements made before the magistrate. More than 65 statements were made bef­ore the magistrate under section 164 of CrPC.

If you see our analysis of MLC (medico-legal case) rep­orts from the hospital,  on  February 24, from 12 noon to 5.30 pm, a majority of the injured who were taken to the hospital were policemen and few from one community.

The policemen were inj­ured because they went to the location where the mob had already collected and causing riot and when police tried to disperse the rioters they came under heavy brickbats. There were large crowds and the policemen suffered injuries.

The second phase started from 5.30 pm till next morning (February 25) when it was mostly the maj­ority community who were injured. In the third phase, on 25, the maximum number of affected people were injured came from the other community.

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There still exists a level of mistrust when you don’t take action against people who say ‘goli maaro saalon ko’. It appears to be one-sided action.

Unfortunately, there are some people who use social media to propagate a wrong narrative of a particular kind. We are also on social media now as we have learnt that we need to strongly confront such narrative building. But the presence of people, who are of a particular mindset, is high. Whether that statement which you are mentioning has affected these riots? Many have given statements. It is clear from the MLC analysis I mentioned earlier…first, policemen were targeted, then people of the majority community and lastly, of the min­ority community. You can see that the investigation is on the right track.

There were videos that showed policemen forcing the injured to sing the national anthem. Have they been identified?

We have been able to identify but not all of them. We are going to pursue the matter. There is no reason for us to hide anything.

Delhi Police faces a crisis of credibility with whatever happened in JNU.  There are videos of goons with lathis, including a girl believed to be from ABVP, attacking the students. No action seems to have been taken against them.

For want of knowledge I won’t be able to comment as my attention was essentially focused on northeast riots, then the pandemic, farmers protests etc.

You are saying that you are impartial?

We are 200 per cent impartial. You have no reasons to doubt our intention.

It is a problem of perception that the Delhi Police faces…

There is no need to put out well-rehearsed phrases which are not substantiated. The same police force, during the Covid lockdown, when you were at home, was working round the clock. Then you didn’t have any problem. It is because the police were not required to take coercive action. It was doing humanitarian action. The police, by their very nat­ure, have to take coercive act­ion and if you start doubting the intentions beh­ind it, then we can’t help it.

Coming to the January 26 incident, you say you had int­elligence that things could go wrong. In hindsight do you think, permission should not have been given for the tractor rally?

Even now I would take the same decision that I took then. The farmers wanted to take out a tractor rally and we tried to persuade them not to come inside Delhi because there are a number of issues we need to tackle on Republic Day. Since they insisted, a wiser way of going about it was to arrive at a compromise. That is what we did. If some people consider themselves leaders with some standing, they should have kept their promise.

Secessionist organisation, Sikhs for Justice, had publicly promised a reward for hoisting the Khalistani flag. Don’t you think the Red Fort incident could have been prevented?

In fact, what we did was eventually proved right. At the end of the day, people have understood the conditions and various limitations under which we were working and they have fin­ally appreciated the kind of decisions we took and the approach that we followed.

The lower-level police personnel work under difficult conditions. What is the status of police reforms?

Police morale is at the highest at present. Only when police morale is high that you will be able to face the challenges that we have faced in the last one year. Otherwise the whole thing will crumble.

I maintain close communication with my force down the line to the last man. I have encouraged them for good performance and have been rewarding them heavily with cash rewards and out-of-turn promotions. As many as 137 out-of-turn promotions were given last year. One issue where the police had not been able to find a solution was missing children. The reward system has given great results in this.

About police reforms, I can do certain things and the government can do some things. For example, I renegotiated the Delhi Police ins­urance cover with Axis Bank. There was an insurance of Rs 5 lakh for natural death and Rs 30 lakh for accidental death which has been inc­reased to Rs 28 lakh and Rs 78 lakh, respectively.

Do you think the inter-faith crimes have increased over the last few years?

No. Many a time, some simple crimes are being given religious colours.

The big issue that has been hanging fire is whether the Delhi Police should be under the Centre for Delhi government?

I would not like to answer it politically. But this has been maintained for a long number of years that Delhi Police should be under the Centre because Delhi is a national capital and there are so many issues for which its police have to be under the central government.

What are the plans to modernise the Capital’s police force and make it more professional?

Training is crucial to equip the force with various skills that new-age policing req­uires. Apart from controlling crime rate, police deal with cyber-crime, economic offences, organised crime and growing traffic. It is important to equip yourself with men, material and technology to strengthen the force. We have hired a number of outside experts that include 66 legal consultants, 914 data entry ope­rators, cyber experts, forensic experts and consultants to help with economic offences.