When conscience bites cop
by
AJ Philip |
A landmark case in police history
IT was a moment of shame for the police when a retired senior police officer was sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in the southern state of Kerala last week. It was also a moment of pride because the punishment was made possible by the courage of conviction shown by two retired police constables.
What made the case extraordinarily noteworthy is that constable P. Ramachandran Nair confessed that it was he who shot ultra-leftist A. Varghese in 1970. For the first time, his confession shredded to pieces the police version that Varghese, a fugitive, was killed in a police “encounter”, a euphemism for custodial killing.
It led to the opening of the Varghese murder case in which retired Inspector-General of Police K. Lakshmana, aged 75, was given life term and a fine of Rs10,000. Never in the history of Indian police had a policeman made such a confession that could implicate him.
That is precisely what happened. Nair was the first accused in the charge-sheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). But that did not deter him. Given the circumstances of the case and his confession, the court could have given him the severest punishment.
The religiously inclined would say God knew this. And that is why He called Nair back in 2006. The Almighty would have decided that the legal system in this world could not have done justice to this gem of a man, who revealed that human conscience had still not died in this materialistic world.
Nair had studied only up to Class 6. It was poverty that compelled him to join the police as a constable. He was in the contingent sent to Wayanad in northern Kerala to track down Varghese, who led an armed group that attacked a police station.
On the morning of February 18, 1970, Varghese fell into the hands of the police. After questioning, he was taken to a secluded forest area. Only “four” constables and Lakshmana were present there. The officer told the foursome that the “decision” was to kill Varghese. “Who among you are ready to shoot him?” Lakshmana asked. Three of the constables raised their hands. Nair was not one of them. That is when Lakshmana ordered him to shoot Varghese, lest he should spill the beans.
Lakshmana hinted that if he resisted, Nair, too, could be killed. As ordered, he picked up the gun, pointed it at Varghese’s chest and pulled the trigger. As the bullet pierced his heart, Varghese shouted a slogan that reverberated in the forest. Next day the police claimed that he was killed in an “encounter”. Nobody could challenge the police version as the cold-blooded murder happened in the forest and the only witnesses were policemen.
Meanwhile, the murder began to haunt Nair. He could never reconcile himself to the fact that he became an instrument in the death of a man of his own age. He wanted to unburden himself. Finally, he told Head Constable MK Jayadevan the truth in 1979. But the world did not know the story till October 1998, when he revealed it to an enterprising journalist.
Nair needed only a cigarette puff to open up to the visiting journalist. And when the story appeared in print, the possibility of justice catching up with the killers of Varghese brightened up. The case was given to the CBI, which filed its charge-sheet in 2002 in which Nair was the first accused and Lakshmana the second.
Nair was questioned by the CBI, arrested and sent to the jail where he remained for a few days till he got bail. He later said that it was in jail that he had the most peaceful sleep. Conscience no longer pricked him.
Though Nair was barely educated, he published his autobiography “Njan Jeevichu Ennathinte Thelivu” (The Proof That I Lived). The book did not set the Bharathapuzha on fire but he went up in public esteem. A documentary titled “Haunted Mind” in which Nair played his own role was produced. Before he could see the film, he died, raising a question mark on the case.
No doubt, it was Nair’s confession that opened the case. But the court could go only by the evidence produced before the judge. Therefore, the case could have collapsed for want of admissible evidence. Fortunately, AK Mohammed Haneefa, who was Nair’s colleague, corroborated his version in the court sealing the fate of Lakshmana.
Few will sympathise with Lakshmana as he cools his heels in the Poojapura jail in Thiruvananthapuram, where at the Palayam Junction stands three monuments in a row – a church, a temple and a mosque – as a testimony of Kerala’s secular ethos. It may be just a coincidence that Nair, a Hindu, and Haneefa, a Muslim, brought justice to the family of Varghese, a Christian.
What did the police gain by killing Varghese? He was popular with the adivasis (aborigins) of Wayanad. It is a different matter that he believed in Chinese leader Mao’s teaching that “power flowed through the gun”. He and his comrades were inspired by the armed struggle waged by the agricultural labourers of Naxalbari in West Bengal in the late sixties. When Varghese was attracted to the Naxalite ideology, the tribals and agricultural labourers were in thrall to the landlords, whose word was the law.
The Naxalites were only a fringe force in Kerala, though they grabbed the limelight when in 1968, led by K Ajitha and Philip M. Prasad, they attacked the Pulpally police station and killed a wireless operator. Ajitha and Prasad were arrested, tried and punished. Today Ajitha is a highly respected social activist while Prasad died a few years ago. If Varghese was tried and punished like them, he could have atoned for his lapses and even done some service to society.
But that was not to be because police officers like Lakshmana believe that they have a right to take the law into their own hands. The verdict should serve as a lesson to all such officers that they can only run from the law and not hide from it.
Oman Tribune |
Other comment for AJ Philip
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| NEWS UPDATES |
|
|
|
|
|
|
