“Vishnuvardhan had passed away, and we were briefed — yet again — that things might go out of control,” says Bhadraiah (name changed), who recalls the day his favourite actor Rajkumar passed away. Some 118 policemen, who were deployed to control the emotionally charged and violent crowd, were grievously injured in April 2006.
Last Wednesday, it turned out, once again the mourning crowds — goaded by miscreants — turned hysterical: seven police officers and 30 constables were injured.
Then recovering from typhoid, says Mr. Bhadraiah, he had just returned from his night shift on April 13, when he was summoned back to duty on his chief’s orders. In response to a frantic call from a petrol bunk on Magadi Road, he and his colleague zipped out on a Cheetah (the police bike), with no more than a lathi in hand and a half-helmet covering their heads.
His voice quivers as he recounts how the mob used his own lathi to thrash him, then tore his clothes, and smashed his bones until he could not feel the pain anymore. “We had gone there to protect them. But it seemed like I had personally harmed them in some way,” he says in a low voice. He survived only to spend over 32 days in hospital and spend about Rs. 2 lakh since on his treatment, he says. Later, the Yeshaswini scheme covered about 30 per cent of his expenses. “The debts I incurred snowballed into larger debts and I had to sell some land near Tumkur.”
But it is not the money or the madness of this mob that Mr. Bhadraiah wishes this reporter will talk about. “I pleaded that we not be sent out into that ‘mad’ mob. All we had was a lathi in hand. No chest guards, no four-wheelers and no ammunition of any sort. How could we have protected anybody, even ourselves?” he asks anguished.
Poorly compensated
Another constable, Krishnamurthy, has a similar tale to narrate. He too was sent out riding on a Cheetah to protect the FTA petrol pump, when people gathered to pay their last respects to thespian Rajkumar suddenly started pelting stones.
“We could not control (the crowds) for we had no weapons,” he says. He claims it does not anger him, even though his jaw, which suffered multiple injuries, aches to this day. But what angers him is that despite performing his duty, he was not taken care of. “My face was smashed, and most of my teeth fell off. I had to spend over Rs. 30,000 on treatment and even today I have to visit the dentist,” he says.
And all Mr. Krishnamurthy was offered was a paltry Rs. 1,300. Nobody came to his help during the time, just like nobody helped him out while he was left beaten on the road. It is such treatment at the end of the day that leaves one bitter, he adds.
