Mumbai Police, India’s Scotland Yard, caught between khaki pride and khadi shadow

Mumbai Police built its credibility through the 1990s and 2000s, first by a speedy detection following the Mumbai blasts, and later by breaking the underworld.

Mumbai Police chief Hemant Nagrale | ANI | Twitter

Everyone, right from lawmakers to judges to IPS officers themselves, has at some point or the other lauded the Mumbai Police as one of India’s finest. Last year, a bench of the Bombay High Court proclaimed the force to be the best in the world after Scotland Yard.

However, this fine force has had a record of finding itself under the spotlight for negative reasons as well — right from the days of the so-called underworld to the contentious encounter killings of the 1990s; from the criticism over the handling of the 26/11 attack to now, when a city cop has been arrested for his alleged role in planting explosives outside industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s house Antilia in Mumbai.

For many years, Mumbai Police officers liked boasting that they were second only to Scotland Yard. From that to the mess they find themselves in today, they have indeed come a long way. The controversy surrounding police officer Waze has severely hurt the image of the police force. And this is why the Mumbai Police is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.

The political undercurrent

Last week, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested assistant police inspector Sachin Waze in connection with the recovery of an explosives-laden car outside the Ambani house. The owner of the vehicle, Mansukh Hiren, was found dead about ten days after his SUV with gelatin sticks was found. The mystery surrounding the SUV got deeper after Hiren’s wife alleged Waze’s role in her husband’s death.

Waze’s arrest sent shockwaves through the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, forcing it to transfer Mumbai Commissioner of Police Param Bir Singh — an obvious attempt to fix accountability and damage control.

Waze is a cop with history and a brief political affiliation with the Shiv Sena. He was suspended from the police force in connection with a custodial killing in 2004 and was reinstated only last year by a committee headed by Param Bir Singh. The senior IPS officer also posted him to the elite Crime Branch, where Waze handled many high-profile and politically sensitive cases.

Mumbai Police and headlines 

Law and order in Mumbai has always made for national headlines, for good reasons and bad.

In the 1980s, when the underworld in Mumbai was flourishing with gangsters such as Dawood Ibrahim, the Pathan gangs, Babu Reshim, and Karim Lala, among others, Mumbai had the image of a city gone rogue.

Back then, Mumbai made news for contract killings and gang wars with rival dons fighting each other, and the state of policing in the city cut a sorry figure.

The decade also saw a new era of ‘encounter specialists’ take root in the police force. While some in Mumbai Police and a section of the society celebrated these sharpshooters for ‘dealing’ with the underworld, many senior officers and rights activists frowned upon them for what were seen as extra judicial killings.

This era of sharpshooters continued through the 1990s decade, after which the then police leadership decided to clean up the force. These ‘encounter specialists’, officers such as Daya Nayak, Pradeep Sharma and even Sachin Waze, were eventually suspended in the early 2000s for one reason or the other, though several, like Waze, later found their way back into the system.

The Mumbai Police also strongly built its credibility through the 1990s into the early 2000s, first by a speedy detection following the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, and later by breaking the underworld, bit by bit.

The Mumbai Police cracked down on criminals from the gangs of Dawood Ibrahim, Arun Gawli and Chhota Rajan, among others, under the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act and the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act.

The premier police force, however, came under heavy criticism over its handling of the 26/11 attack. Anti-terrorism squad chief Hemant Karkare, additional commissioner of police Ashok Kamte, police inspector and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar and assistant sub-inspector Tukaram Omble were among those shot dead on that night of 26 November 2008. When the dust settled on the attack, the police faced severe flak for what appeared to be complete lack of preparedness and coordination and sheer panic. Then Mumbai Police chief Hasan Gafoor bore the brunt and was transferred to a low-profile posting.

More dirt on khaki

Over the last one year, the Mumbai Police has faced more controversies, mostly of a political nature, than at any other time. First, it was the tussle with the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Bihar Police over the probe into the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. The Opposition, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), brought the city police’s efficacy under the MVA government into question.

The police and the Maharashtra government also faced flak for what appeared to be a witch-hunt against Republic TV founder and editor, Arnab Goswami, who had severely criticised the force and its then chief, Param Bir Singh, over Rajput’s death probe. Later, the Mumbai Police started an investigation into the alleged fudging of news channel TRPs involving Republic TV and registered several FIRs against the channel and Goswami.

The arrests of netizens such as Sameet Thakkar and Sunaina Holey for online criticism of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and the state government, and for allegedly using abusive language, also brought heavy criticism for the Mumbai Police.

A city complex to police 

With a high population density, a slum population of over 50 per cent and multiple administrative agencies, Mumbai is a tough city to police.

For a city with a population of about two crore, the Mumbai Police has a sanctioned strength of just a little over 40,000. Even the best in the force spend a lot of time managing political rallies, processions on festivals, and handling law and order while illegal structures are demolished or squatters evicted.

For a force that functions under tough conditions and with scarce resources, the image of the police is just as good as its leadership, senior police officers say. If the leader-in-charge is political, partisan or controversial, the force is coloured with the same qualities.

Views are personal.