Editorial Board Contents - Bureau of Police Research and ...

My Unforgettable Yearsin the North-EastShri Prakash Singh, IPS (Retd.)My association - and fascination - for the northeaststarted at a very young age when I was stillan Assistant Superintendent of Police. I waspicked up by the Intelligence Bureau under the‘earmarking scheme’. It was the brain-child ofB.N. Mullick, the then Director, IntelligenceBureau, under which top position holders fromevery batch were picked up for the IB. Mullickwas a colossus among the police officers of thosedays. He was held in great awe and esteem. Oncehe had earmarked an officer, there was no gettingaway from it. I was released for deputation to theIntelligence Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs inDecember 1963.It would be interesting to place on record aninterface I had as a probationer with B.N.Mullickin the Police Training College, Morabadad onDecember 1, 1960. It so happened that the sevenIPS probationers, undergoing training, had beentaken to a scene of dacoity in the countryside.Here we were told by the instructor that thedacoits always came with their faces covered,but this fact was never mentioned in the FIR. Onthe contrary, it was always recorded by policethat the villagers saw the criminals and identifiedthem in the moonlight or in the light caused byburning of haystack. This fudging, we were told,was necessary to meet the requirement of law.What is laid down in theory and what is donein practice greatly agitated our young minds. Weknew it was wrong but we also knew that statingthe truth would mean letting the criminal getaway from the clutches of law. “Law is an ass”,we remembered.A few days later, Mullick arrived at Moradabadand was staying in the Police Training CollegeMess. We had dinner with him. At Mt. Abu,we had got into the habit of having frank andinformal talks in the Mess with our seniorofficers. We told the DIB of our experience at thescene of dacoity and underscored the differencebetween the theoretical and practical aspectsof police working. Mullick was an idealist andunfortunately did not appreciate our views. Heinsisted that police officers should be truthful,irrespective of the consequences of their actionon crime or criminals. Not that we were bereft ofidealism, but we found his views impractical. Atthis stage, I committed the indiscretion of sayingthat we would then be, in Matthew Arnold’swords, “beautiful but ineffectual angels beatingour luminous wings in the void in vain”. Havingbeen a student of English literature, I was fondof quoting the great authors. Mullick, however,was not amused at the poetical reference. Theconversation ended abruptly and he left the Messin a huff. The next morning, he called QamrulHasan, Principal of the Police Training College,and said that he was greatly disturbed at theway the probationers had talked to him and wasworried about the future of the Indian PoliceService. He even said that he had not been ableto sleep soundly the previous night. Mullick’sstature being what it was, the Principal wasupset. He called us to his room and wanted toknow what had actually transpired. We told himfaithfully the entire sequence of conversation.Fortunately for us, he understood our point ofview better. Nevertheless, he advised us to becircumspect while talking to senior officers infuture.I served in the Intelligence Bureau for nearly adecade and had the good fortune of serving understalwart Directors like BN Mullick, MML Hooja,and Atma Jayaram. Two other officers who greatlyimpressed me by their intellectual brilliance wereAK Dave, an expert on International Communism,and KN Prasad, an expert on North-East. It wasreally unfortunate that neither of them couldrise to the rank of DIB, though they eminentlydeserved to occupy the high office.The Indian Police Journal, October - December, 2012, Special Issue 73