The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Police tied down by procedural norms

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 24, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Police tied down by procedural norms

By Marri Ramu

HYDERABAD, JAN. 23. Culprits at high speed and the policemen at a snail's pace! Several persons who have fled the country and sought refuge in other countries allegedly after committing offences in the State, have been managing to avoid the long arm of the law, thanks to the cumbersome procedures the police are bound to follow to catch them.

Cases of fake certificate rackets masterminded by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), terrorist activities of religious fundamentalist organisations like Lashkar-e-Taiyba (LeT), international credit cards scams, bank frauds and family disputes -- several persons accused of involvement in these crimes are lounged overseas even as the police cool their heels. While some have fled to other countries after committing offences here, others are reportedly operating from overseas.

A classic case is that of the Krushi Bank chairman, Venkateshwara Rao, who reportedly fled to London after the bank collapsed in 2001. He remains untraced even today. So is the case of the mafia don Dawood Ibrahim's agents -- Babu Gaithan and Aftab Batki -- who allegedly ran a fake currency racket. Though the police have arrested some persons working on behalf of the duo, the latter are supposedly continuing their operations from abroad.

Constraints on sleuths

Unlike other crimes, sleuths are not permitted to fly to other countries and arrest the accused. At the State police level, there is a separate wing in Crime Investigation Department (CID) dealing with such cases.

Headed by the Deputy Inspector General rank officer, the CID wing has to approach the Central Bureau of Investigation, the sole agency in the country authorised to contact the International Police Organisation (Interpol).

International protocol mandates that if a country wants the arrest of an accused residing in another country, it should execute the arrest through Interpol. After the Interpol contacts the country concerned, the Government there will follow its own procedures. Depending on the case, the wanted persons are either deported or extradited. "Again, extradition is possible only if an extradition treaty is signed between those two countries," a police officer explained.

Police officials suggest that unless procedural difficulties are removed, the culprits will continue to evade the police. Narrating the case of Faran Malik alias Aftab Ansari, an accused in the terrorist attack on the American Centre in Kolkata in January 22, 2002, by Kolkata police in Dubai, a police officer explains how swift response at international-level has helped the police apprehend the offenders.

Faran Malik was also wanted by the State Police in the kidnap case of a businessman, Partharai Barman, who was released on payment of ransom.

Phone call gives clue

Detectives stumbled upon a telephone number from which Malik made the ransom call. Probe traced the call to America. The police approached a visiting American team in the city and using the latter's good offices, continued the investigation.

Further probe revealed that Malik had, in fact, called from Dubai using a call conference facility in America. The Dubai telephone number too was traced quickly and Malik was arrested from a lodge in Dubai and deported to India. "Unless things move swiftly like in the case of Malik, arresting the accused hiding in other countries is simply not possible," some policemen have observed.

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