The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : If it happens to a police official… Law and order

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Saturday, Feb 09, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

If it happens to a police official… Law and order

As the vehicle sped off, the victim noted down the number of the car, writes R. Sujatha

A woman Sub-Inspector on the Chief Minister’s bandobust duty on the Cathedral Road-Kasturi Ranga Road junction on December 3 was knocked down by a speeding car around 10.15 a.m., half an hour before the Chief Minister’s convoy was expected to pass that way.

As the vehicle sped off, the victim had the presence of mind to note the number and alert the control room about the accident on her walkie-talkie before fainting. “I raised my hand to stop the vehicle, realising that he was speeding. But by then he had knocked me down. I was, however, able to register the number,” said M. Muneera Begum, attached to the Royapettah All-Woman Police Station. Two months after the incident, she finds it difficult to speak for 10 minutes at a stretch. She cannot bend her knees yet. “I fell on my knees when I was knocked down.”

In her complaint filed more than a month after the incident, she said that onlookers and fellow police personnel helped to move her to a nearby private hospital, where she was kept under observation for a day.

Ms. Begum could not return to duty and after a medical examination at the police hospital in Egmore, she went on a month’s leave. Though on that day, a Sub-Inspector had taken down the details of the accident and she had been asked to sign on a plain paper that contained the number of the car, no case was registered.

Until she returned to duty on January 3, no complaint had been registered. A senior officer, who came to know of the incident, took the initiative and a case was registered on January 5. The investigation has not gone beyond tracing the address. The vehicle is registered in the name of a steel company with an office in Raja Annamalai Puram.

Ms. Begum is on medication and speaks with difficulty. What happened to her could have happened to anyone, she says. Ms. Begum’s husband is also working in the Police Department. An oral complaint to the control room should suffice for the police to register a complaint, but the incident shows that police made no effort to do so, even for a colleague.

In the FIR in the column for ‘reason for delay in reporting by the complainant/informant’ the entry reads ‘delayed by complainant’.

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