New Socialist Movement

IPS association bats for Mathur, civil society organisations back daily

Express News Service

Posted online: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 at 2311 hrs IST

Ahmedabad, June 03

The chasm between police and civil society seems to be getting deeper with the IPS (Indian Police Service) Association coming out in support of Ahmedabad Police Commissioner O P Mathur.

While civil society organisations have been expressing their solidarity with the media and its freedom of expression, the association has backed Mathur for his tough stand taken against the Times of India.

The Executive Committee of the IPS Association said in a resolution adopted at a meeting on Monday that it unanimously concluded that the reports on Mathur published in the newspaper are “malicious, false, based on hearsay and not on facts.” The resolution said it was “defamatory, derogatory in nature and cast aspersions not only on the officer concerned”, but on the police force as a whole.

“The reports, including some twisted facts suiting convenience of the author of nearly 15 years vintage, have been timed to be published in such a manner so as to attack the newly appointed Commissioner of Police on personal grounds, and to question the wisdom of the administrative function of the government,” it said further, adding: “Such reports which target an individual and smell of personal vindictiveness need to be strongly condemned and all available legal action should be taken against the authors of the reports.”

Meanwhile, Jan Sangharsh Manch and its political wing New Socialist Movement have come down heavily on both the state government and the police department. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Manch said: “The action of the Government of Gujarat, according sanction under section 196 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to the complaint lodged by the Police Commissioner clearly establishes collusion between Shri O P Mathur and the government.”

The Manch said it was a private complaint by Mathur and therefore, the government ought to have acted “judiciously and impartially.” “It was mandatory on the part of the government to undertake preliminary investigation under section 196(3) of CrPC in the case,” the statement added.

The Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) has sent a memorandum to the Governor, demanding immediate withdrawal of sedition and conspiracy charges.

“Apart from the communalisation of the Police department in the state, the practice of criminalisation of the police is appalling, which demands immediate remedy. The democratisation of the police and the administration is the only solution, which is yet to be free from the hangover of age-old British Rule,” the memorandum said. It further said the role of the media as the watchdog of democracy and its role to disseminate the right information to the citizen is always indispensable.