In the line of fire

March 07, 2012 04:21 pm | Updated 04:21 pm IST

Always answerable. Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

Always answerable. Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

Spare a thought for our police officers. The recent encounters of the robbers who looted banks at Keelkataalai and Perungudi created a lot of talk about “human rights” and how those people didn't deserve it to die.

While I do not condone the action, I wondered about what other options the police had in that situation.

Sparse options

In case the police took too long to find the suspects, they are accused of being inefficient. If they get involved in encounters, they are accused of being trigger happy. What do you expect them to do? Wait, I can hear some people arguing about taking them to the courts.

Let's say that the robbers were caught and brought to court. While we have a so-called judiciary in place, how efficient is it, in any case? Even if you ignore all scams and scandals that our politicians have been involved in, we still have cases like Ajmal Kasab. After more than three years of trial in courts, Ajmal Kasab seems to have been sentenced to death by natural causes! And the cherry on top is that more money has been used to keep Kasab alive than what was robbed. Ironical, isn't it?

Nobody would like to be subject to criticism all the time. And yet, we are obsessed with tagging whatever the police do as “wrong” or “bad”. I think it's about time we stopped doing that.

J. SUDHARSHAN, XI, D.A.V Boys School, Gopalapuram

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