Cops in India are everywhere, well other than those places that have crimes, jokes apart the kind of security we do get nowadays due to the efforts of the police department is really good. This post is not to praise or put down any government body but just putting forth a few things I have observed and dont’t quite understand the motive behind such actions. I do not wish to be arrested on account of blasphemy, so if any cop is reading this please stop right away, I mean no offense 😛
I’ve almost always tried to maintain all the traffic laws put down by the cops in my city and I believe the Bangalore City Traffic police do the best work in the whole of India. There has been this one time when I got caught for violating the compulsory helmet rule, I had absolutely no problem or complaint that i was caught as early as 6 30 am or the fact that I was caught inside a residential area, but what followed after that is really confusing for me, and few other things that I started observing about the city cops post that also pushed me towards writing this post.
6 30 am : Cop asks me to stop at the side and I was still pretty sleepy
I obliged and stopped and it took me around 5 minutes to realize I had to pay a fine, all this because I had come to the college bus stop to return a belt to someone 😛 So yeah I was caught, had left my wallet at home as I did not expect to be stopped and fined this early in the morning. Thankfully had my phone and I asked my mom( she was really busy and she said she will come after 15 minutes, she was angry) and I waited for my documents and the fine money. Right in front of me there were people riding without helmet but the cop made sure that at a time only 5 were caught and no more, I just asked the cop why he is letting them go and catching selectively and he snaps back at me. I thought I should strike a deal with him and tell him i’ll catch him 2 people in turn he can let me go 😛 but he was pretty angry already so i refrained. Half the people did not have documents and were waiting for someone to get it for them and the cop was free not like he was busy, only one thing stuck my head, are these guys working for a target or for getting the city to be organized and safe? Did they join the force for passion or just for a job?
Ever since I started observing the way cops apprehend people and fine them, well in one way it is nice to know we have people to keep the city safe but the method is pretty disturbing. In the beautiful city of Bangalore the speed limits are very strictly enforced with interceptors catching offenders regularly, 60 kmph for cars and 50 kmph for 2 wheelers. If speed was to be kept under control why do the cops always have interceptors behind curves? Places where they cannot be spotted easily? Are the trying to give us an opportunity to commit a crime and then fine us? Sounds like that right? If they really wanted to keep the city safe they would try and avoid the speeding cases by having these interceptors on open roads and being clearly visible hence not giving us the chance to break the speed limit. To be honest I feel we civilians should learn to follow rules, but obviously we have those poor miserable under educated rich people who think they own the roads, but we can always stop ourselves from making the roads unsafe. Coming back to my original point, why hide and catch rather than prevent and keep the place safe? The department should stop looking at the law breakers as a source of income, instead they should focus on making the place safe.
The case of ” Let them commit the crime and then fine ” is not confined to over speeding or small offenses like no helmet, most of the one ways in Bangalore have a cop standing at the end of the one way, hence catching the people there and fining them, why for the love of god can you not stand at the place of entry for the wrong way and stop people? If you cannot answer this all one can interpret is that cops look at offenders as a source of money. Given the number of pubs in the city, drunken driving is pretty high, and trust me if not for the work of bangalore cops we would have deaths accounted to drunken driving to the counts of 10 to 15 every night, but again why can’t cops intercept these people at the source of drunken drivers? Agreed too many pubs too few cops, but for the MG Road region they can have a cop at the end of Brigade road as that is one exit and few more cops at the ends of MG Road, but no you can travel at least 4-5 kms before being stopped by a cop for a breath analyzer test.
I always have this fear getting mugged when i am outside late at night so I never carry my wallet with me, unfortunately for me one night I had taken the car to my friends place and left the wallet at his place before I ventured out at 2 am hoping I’d be able to find something to eat. Well two cops not traffic cops the other cops stopped me and asked for my car documents and stuff, fair enough they want to see if i’ve robbed the car. I realized it was all at my friends place 2 kms away. I told the cop my situation and told him i’d stay right there and i’ll ask my friend to get the documents, if the cop actually wanted to ensure that it was not a case of robbery he would have agreed to it, well he says he has been instructed to collect fine on the spot in case of no documents. What the hell is that? If i give a fine then the car is mine even if I have robbed it? He asked me for 900 bucks, thankfully no wallet and I had only 10 bucks in the car, now he could not say go home and get the wallet as he said he had to collect fine on the spot. Well luckily he saw my poor state and let me go, but only after a long speech about how important being disciplined one needs to be during the age of 16-24 and stuff. I rushed back to my friends place and heaved a sigh of relief.
To end all I would say is, Bangalore definitely has huge traffic problems but the department is working hard to keep the city safe, I’ve been in cities like Hyderabad and boy its a terror to ride a bike there. Its much more safer here, but to ride a bike in Bangalore either you follow each and every rule and pay only for petrol or you will get caught by a cop hiding behind a post and pay him a fine 😛
The question still remains unanswered…………
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