As responsible officers, they were all fired up to save the entire police force from being disgraced by a few upstarts. But, only to realise later that they had missed the point.
Dramatic scenes unfolded in Kochi on Tuesday after a few Kerala Students Union (KSU) activists took out a march to the office of the Director General of Prosecutions (DGP) in connection with the Jishnu Pranoy case. The protest passed off peacefully until it reached the premises of the office of the Inspector General of Police, Kochi range, where police officers prevented them from proceeding further.
Burning of effigy
It, however, took a dramatic turn when the protesters tried burning an effigy of the DGP.
A couple of policemen present at the spot mistook the effigy to be of the Director General of Police and, determined to stop the protesters from insulting their topmost officer, snatched the effigy from them.
The police move was unexpected. The tussle between the protesters and the police then snowballed into a full-blown fight. Eventually, the police succeeded in taking complete control over the effigy, which was shifted to a police vehicle.
Unwilling to give up, the KSU activists staged a sit-in on the road nearby, leading to traffic disruptions. Later, all six activists were arrested and taken to the Central Police station.
However, the proud police officers were in for a rude shock when they realised that it was a mix-up and they had staged a fight over nothing.
When approached by the press, the police officers tried keeping a straight face and pointed out that the activists were arrested for protesting without permission. “They had no permission to stage a march and burn an effigy. Hence the police seized the effigy and arrested the protesters,” said a police officer.