Complaint #2

Raj said...
This is to bring to your notice and make a complaint about an incident that took place at the junction of Poornima Talkies Road and JC Road opposite the Bangalore Stock Exchange Building on the 29th of October 2007 at 1:10 pm. I was traveling in my Santro and had crossed the signal to enter into Poornima Talkies road when an officer stopped my car and said that I had jumped the signal when it was red. He did not even want to listen to what my father and I had to say and started talking to us in a very loud voice and became very rude and arrogant. He demanded for my driver's license which I duly produced and insisted that I had jumped the signal light and continued to be arrogant. Upon asking him to give me a chance to speak, he became even more rude. I had to raise my voice then to inform the officer that the signal was green when I crossed the zebra crossing on JC road and some vehicles were blocking the path to enter into poornima talkies road and by the time the signal had gone red while I was in the middle of the junction well ahead of the zebra crossing while the signal was still green.

He argued that I was wrong and continued to yell at me and my father. I protested and said that he should talk politely and try to understand the situation but he bluntly refused to listen and asked us to talk to his senior office while continuing to be unreasonably rude and arrogant. In the meantime, his senior officer Mr.Nagesh Haslur approached on his vehicle number KA03G 838. We went up to him and explained the situation, the misunderstanding of his junior officer that we jumped the signal and the rude manner in which he was behaving with us and I also gave my driver's licence to him for inspection upon his demanding the same. At first he patiently listened to what we had to say. Mr.Haslur also enquired about where the officer was standing to which we told him that he approached us from beyond the Bangalore Stock Exchange Building and stopped us more than 200 meters after the signal light and that he was probably standing even beyond that point at the time we crossed the junction. Immediately the junior officer responded by saying that he was at the signal light and not away from it near the stock exchange which was a blatant lie because if that was the case, how could he have stopped us so much beyond the signal light right opposite the stock exchange.

We wanted to find out the name of the junior officer but found that he was not wearing any name badge and upon asking him of his name, he refused to divulge it and neither was Mr.Nagesh Haslur willing to part with the officer's name. Instead, even the senior officer Mr.Haslur who until now appeared to want to understand the situation started to replicate his subordinate's behaviour. He lost his temper because we wanted to know the officer's name and started to misbehave with us. He started a row and began to threaten us by saying that he would seize the vehicle we were driving and send us a notice to come to the courts. He argued with us that we had no right to ask the junior officer his name and that we should only speak to him. In spite of this even he refused to divulge the junior's name. We responded by asking him to go ahead and seize our vehicle because we were on the correct side of the law and that the officer had no right to threaten us like that. We were being spoken to rudely by two officers for no mistake of ours, instead the junior officer who blamed us for having jumped the signal was himself not carrying out his duty by being at the traffic junction, we had to face hardship because of this since the traffic on Poornima Talkies road had come onto the wrong side and was blocking out way into the road. The officer was not even wearing his name badge and then this behavior with my father and me. We were completely distraught.

We let the senior officer shout and be arrogant for a few minutes and then when he had exhausted shouting his lungs out, we asked him to do what he thought was right by the law since we do not want to break the law or be on the wrong side of the law. He continued to be arrogant and asked us what he should do. We told him that he could seize our car if he thought that was right, he could impose a fine on us if he thought that was right or do anything else under his purview as he was the senior most representative of the law at that juncture. Mr.Nagesh Haslur decided to return my license and ask us to leave the scene. This clearly shows that the office was forced not to impose a fine on us or take any other action which he threatened upon us because the circumstances clearly showed that we were on the correct side of the law and had not jumped the traffic signal. Moreover he was also clearly aware of the fact that his junior officer was not carrying out his duty and so he let us go because he was also aware that we were on the right side of the law.

From what we could see and have observed on a daily basis in the past also, they are least bothered about controlling traffic at the junction during afternoon hours and are more occupied with collecting fines from students from the neighboring Mahaveer Jain College . We are faced with this situation of traffic coming in from the wrong side of the road on poornima talkies everyday and have to just wait until the next signal clears out with the traffic police being present at the junction on very rare occasions.

In fact, we have also seen Mr.Nagesh Haslur on several occasions driving away from clogged traffic at the junction of Lal Bagh Road and Poornima Talkies Road after letting a VIP convoy through. He simply waits untill the convoy goes through and then leaves the scene leaving the clogged traffic unattended which results in utter confusion at the junction. We urge you to take this compliant strongly and take some serious action regarding this. We have no personal grudge against the officers but it is shocking that someone who is given power to protect and uphold the law should misuse it like this to ill-treat the public and the citizens of the city in this manner.

I sincerely hope somebody can do something about incidents like these and the inhuman attitude of the policemen in Bangalore City.

Rajendar Goyal