Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Dangerous signs

I just cannot believe that the Gurgaon police could be so brutal towards the workers of Honda Motors. The images on TV of the violence were shocking. The way the protesters were beaten up even after they had fallen down reminds one of the days of the British Raj when freedom fighters were mercilessly assaulted.

Is this the type of training imparted to our police for dealing with tense situations? These are dangerous signs.

R. Madhavan,
Salem, T.N.

The sustained lathi-charge on the protesting workers is condemnable. A blow or two would have sufficed to disperse the crowd.

Jaiwardhan Singh,
Jaipur

The incident is reminiscent of the way in which the East India Company slowly gained control over us by turning the police of the time in its favour. The police personnel responsible should be punished.

N. Jayaraj,
Chennai

The incident brings into focus many crucial questions. Can police in the name of quelling an irate mob attack them causing grievous injuries when methods such as the use of teargas shells and water cannons are available?

B. Ramabhoopathy,
Sriharikota, A.P.

The police could have easily taken the few who attacked them into custody and controlled the situation. Instead they chose to retaliate in a brutal manner. It now appears that what happened in Gurgaon can happen to anybody anywhere.

Jaydip Das,
Hyderabad

The incident has destroyed completely the common man's confidence in the police. It is true that the Honda employees' action was incorrect but where was the need for the police to respond in such savage fashion?

Megha Sahay,
Ranchi

Physical force as the first recourse in enforcing the law is crude. The change in behaviour seen in various fields of present-day society is reflected in the behaviour of the police too. We seem to have moved from curative medicine to preventive medicine and lately to pre-emptive medicine.

M.J. Kuruvilla,
Kochi, Kerala

As the editorial, `Force as the first recourse' (July 27), puts it, it is time the police become "custodians of the law and not outlaws somehow empowered by the law."

A curbing of the culture of violence of the present day has to begin from the enforcers of the law. The picture of a protester hurling a policeman's cap speaks volumes about the feelings of the public towards the police. When will people understand the implications of the primitive norm, "an eye for an eye"?

Prasad Xavier,
Mysore

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