The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Vigil on fake certificate racketeers goes for a toss Law and order

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Monday, Sep 22, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Vigil on fake certificate racketeers goes for a toss Law and order

Fake certificate racketeers continue operations despite tough measures by the task force, writes Marri Ramu

The Commissioner’s Task Force (TF) sleuths deserve a pat on their backs for recently busting yet another fake educational certificate racket.

They probably need more encouragement for persistently pursuing offenders because it was the seventh such gang they had arrested in past one year.

If this is the brighter side of active policing, there is an equally dubious angle to it. All the gangs arrested so far in such cases took up the job of making fake documents almost like a small-scale industry.

Some of them were held twice or thrice on the same charge. After coming out from jail on bail, the accused start the ‘business’ again with a separate gang by roping in new members.

The gangs manage to continue their ‘operations’ despite the TF police frequently cracking the whip naturally raises this question - is it not failure of city police as a unit to check recurrence of crime? Take for example the case of Hameed who was among four persons held two days ago. He was arrested twice earlier by the same Task Force officials on the same charge.

There are several persons with similar record. Police are supposed to keep a watch on movements of persons arrested in such grave cases to check recurrence of crime. Despite being arrested once, how did Hameed make and sell fake certificates again and again? TF officers argue that their job is to arrest the accused and hand over to the local police concerned. For the citizen, that looks like the game of passing buck.

It is interesting that most of these gangs are caught by TF officials while the local police - who are second to none in controlling other offences - fail to notice the crime pattern and catch them. Are members of these gangs operating so clandestinely and skilfully that even local police and the TF officials are unaware of their movements?

Police frequently summon persons with criminal record and verify their antecedents through various sources. Unlike property offenders, persons like Hameed are mostly operating from the same locality and it should be easier for police to keep watch on them.

Frequently surfacing fake certificate rackets only suggest that crime intelligence gathering network of police is not strong enough.

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