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Kunal (Assistant Manager)     10 March 2012

Police harressment for strolling on a main road at 2:30am

I am from Mumbai supposedly a city that never sleeps. I was sitting outside a shop that was closed at 2:30 in the night with a friend of mine within 5 feet of his house when Police with plain clothes drove up in a non police car and stopped by the shop. We had met that late because I got home late from work and by the time I saw him and we had strolled around it was late. He wanted to show me some regular website (non p*rnographic) he had come across and to look at it peacefully before he got inside his house, we decided to sit on the steps, thinking it is a matter of 5 to 10 minutes, plus the police station is not more than 50 feet away, so we are safe. If it helps, I am 33 and he is 22. Both are well educated and definately were not dressed like people who sleep on the street.

I asked them for their ID and they refused to show me any id. They said they shall take us to the nearest police station that was in Santacruz (W). We agreed to go as we wanted to cooperate with the law. When they took us there, even though there was an official in uniform who looked like a inspector or sub inspector by rank, they still did not tell us why they had got us to the police station. Even though I repeatedly asked them to state why they had asked us to come to the station and what was our crime neither did the ones in plain clothes nor did the officer tell us why we were brought there and they said that we needed to meet a senior official who would explain things to us. Then they took me and my friend to another area where they was no senior official and forcibly took our phones away from us and locked us up in a detention room. One of them even went ahead and slapped my young friend on his face while I was trying to resist my phone being taken away from me without I being given any information as to why we were there. One has read more than enough stories of police brutality and harressement in the newspaper and their behavior appeared downright suspicious. That had prompted me to resist this treatment being meted out to us.

When the officer eventually came, they presented us in front of him. He told us that the police had sweeping rights to question anyone they found suspicious in the night and that it was unlawful for a law abiding citizen to be out on the streets or in a place of entertainment late into the night which did not have the necessary permissions or licenses to be open.

I would like to know what are these law(s) that this officer was referring to?

What sweeping powers do the police have under these law(s)? are they special to Mumbai or do they apply everywhere? Am I really expected to sit in my house at night even though no curfew has been declared?

What is the definition of "suspicious" for the police?

Under what precise circumstances do they have the right to slap a tax paying law abiding citizen?

What are my rights as a citizen for redress? With government body can I complain to against the police?



Learning

 3 Replies


(Guest)

first of all while arresting somebody a police officer must be in his uniform rather than in plain dress. in your case you are arrested by police without uniform. so it is not a valid arrest in the first place.

secondly, police has no right to hurt any citizen even if they arrest citizen.in your case if they slapped your friend, then they again violated law.

i don't know what law police is talking about. you are not in a place of entertainment that has no license at all. according to your descripttion you are in front of a shop with your friend and that shop is 5 feet away from your friend's house. so i don't know on which law they arrested you.

i think they need money that's why they harassed you. you better complain to a district magistrate about this misbehaviour of police and seek your remedy. it is not a valid arrest at all.


(Guest)

first of all while arresting somebody a police officer must be in his uniform rather than in plain dress. in your case you are arrested by police without uniform. so it is not a valid arrest in the first place.

secondly, police has no right to hurt any citizen even if they arrest citizen.in your case if they slapped your friend, then they again violated law.

i don't know what law police is talking about. you are not in a place of entertainment that has no license at all. according to your descripttion you are in front of a shop with your friend and that shop is 5 feet away from your friend's house. so i don't know on which law they arrested you.

i think they need money that's why they harassed you. you better complain to a district magistrate about this misbehaviour of police and seek your remedy. it is not a valid arrest at all.

Democratic Indian (n/a)     10 March 2012

Probably the police have not made any kind of written entry about your arrest, therefore it will be very difficult to prove that you were arrested, treated badly and so on. In all probablity by use of this terrorism they wanted to extort bribes from you.


I feel that your going to the police station with them was not a wise step. Instead you could have entered your house on some pretext and alerted more people in the locality. Also yo could have as soon as possible sent emails to local police station with copies to Deputy Commissioner and Commisssioner of Police telling that some men of descripttion abc, in plains cloths in car with registration number xyz claiming to be policemen are standing outside your house to arrest you for sitting outside your house.


There is no such law to harass people sitting outside their house. But if police wants they can file various false cases under various laws. They have plenty of laws to misuse and create misery. Just a few for example: Sections 41, 42 and 151 of Criminal Procedure Code, Section 20 of Arms Act 1959 etc.


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