Mr Plod and Mr Goon may have gifted a whole generation with childhood reading of pure delight, but the stories they inhabited have fallen off the politically correct radar. Their tight-trousered, round-bellied, self important gait and notorious wobbliness on the bicycle may have caused peals of laughter, but were hardly complimentary to policemen. In a more grown-up world, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Inspector Lestrade and Agatha Christie’s Inspector Japp were slightly better, but still no match for the famous amateur detectives they carped at and depended on. It is only with Georges Simenon’s meticulous Jules Maigret, Ngaio Marsh’s handsome Roderick Alleyn and P.D. James’s brooding Adam Dalgliesh and others of the same fictional police detective tribe that the clever and active policeman slides into hero position. But, in real life, it is difficult to keep him there.
Particularly in West Bengal. Robbers may come and robbers may go, while policemen stand still forever. No doubt this is an unkind exaggeration, but it is certainly close to the impression that the inmates of the house in Salt Lake that was recently looted, their neighbours and relatives who came to the rescue, all seem to have had. Not only were the three policemen who came unable to scale a five-foot wall to help the trapped family because their trousers were too tight, but they also stood quietly behind the relatives and neighbours on whom the robbers turned with their guns. The policemen had guns, but no “orders” to use them. Evidently, they were not prepared for such an emergency, neither were they trained to intervene without taking lives.
Like the Mr Goons and Mr Plods of yore, the police seem to be busy passing the buck. The fault is being laid at the door of the telephone company, as also of the courageous and resourceful woman who hid her cellphone from the robbers and managed to text a message for help to her sister. The message — when it reached the police — was too cryptic, is one claim, so three policemen were just sent to suss things out. But that did not explain why nobody picked up the woman’s frantic calls to 100, the police emergency number. The man on duty also needs to go to the bathroom sometimes, was one explanation, the alternative one being that the phone actually did not ring. What the caller heard was a “false ring” — perhaps the telephone company’s fault? Years of politicization and the erosion of accountability have done immeasurable damage. But the route from Mr Goon to Roderick Alleyn is still not impassable. It may gradually open up with thoughtful planning, proper training, fitness and sensitization programmes and an injection of motivation. Neighbours and friends should always help, but the police should help them first.