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Indefensible

It was painful to see letters from army personnel almost justifying the army's seizure of a police station in Kolkata to "rescue" their supposedly beleaguered colleagues (Jan. 5). Bullying of civilians by army men has become routine. Be it on trains or elsewhere, they insist on their right of supremacy. This tendency should be condemned in the severest terms.

R. Ramachandra Rao,
Hyderabad

Whatever the merits or demerits of the police action, the army officers had no business to storm a police station.

The argument that they are trained to rescue their comrades in distress is applicable only in the battlefield or during national calamities, not when they are arrested.

Capt. T. Raju,
Secunderabad

The police cannot be expected to remain mute spectators to unruly behaviour by army officers in an inebriated state in a civilian environment. Getting arrested on a charge of disorderly behaviour is not a state of distress. What did the two officers expect — the DGP of West Bengal to come in person and arrest them?

H.N.S. Mani,
Mysore

What kind of courtesies and protocol are the police expected to extend to army officers who behave like hoodlums? They behaved like neither officers nor gentlemen. No respect is due to a man who gets inebriated and goes berserk in public.

Sikander Khan,
New Delhi

The army personnel, I am sure, would have reacted at the spur of the moment to rescue their colleagues following substantial provocation. There are several instances in which politicians and their goons barge into police stations and whisk away their men without facing any consequences. I am not saying the army personnel's action should be condoned. The provocation should also be enquired into.

N. Sreemannarayana,
Visakhapatnam

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