18 April, 2007

Vinod Khanna and Savita Jangam

Two incidents involving cops. One:

Close to 2,000 cops spent the entire Sunday night hunting for a cabbie who had stolen an expensive mobile phone belonging to member of Parliament and yesteryear actor Vinod Khanna’s son, Saakshi. Nakabandis were put in place across south Mumbai and the suburbs and a message was flashed to all police stations and patrolling vehicles. The taxi’s owner was traced in no time and the mobile was recovered from the cabbie’s house in Behrampada, Bandra (east) on Monday afternoon.

Two:

Thirty-five-year Savita Jangam, a resident of Worli Village, lives in constant fear. She can hardly sleep. Savita was like another normal woman till a few days ago, but an incident on April 8 made her lose her mental balance. She was stripped, beaten and paraded half-naked by villagers and hung on a tree for nine hours at her native village in Bhor, Pune, before being rescued by her husband.

[...]

“We approached the local police station in Bhor on the same day, but initially, the officials refused to register our complaint,” [her husband] Gopal said.

Needless to say, the location of the above incidents is irrelevant. In this country, if you’re rich and influential, the police are like your personal servants. If you’re poor, you don’t exist. That’s all there is to it.