Bhubaneswar Jan 2 : Police officials working in Odisha’s rural hinterland often get away with excesses they commit against the unassuming populace, but the New Year began with a difference.
A police official who played a leading role in killing and cooking a villager’s goat for a New Year’s Eve feast at the police station was swiftly placed under suspension.
The incident, which took place in Odisha’s western Balangir district, sent a tough message across the state’s police force. Just a day ago, Odisha Police got a new chief as Sunil Kumar Bansal, a 1987-batch IPS officer of Odisha cadre, took charge as the new director general of police (ASI).
As the personnel at Sindhekela police station in Balangir district planned a feast as a New Year’s Eve celebration on Friday evening, a goat that had strayed into the compound became an easy catch. It did not matter to the police that the goat, reared by a poor villager living nearby, was a piece of wealth for him. Under instructions from assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Suman Mallick, the officer in charge of the police station, the goat was caught and then killed and cooked.
Worse, when the goat’s owner, Sankirtan Guru, came to the police station to complain about it, he was put in a police vehicle, taken to a nearby place and then brought back to be put in the lock-up. This enraged the villagers, who staged a protest outside the police station. As all efforts by Suman Mallick to pacify the villagers failed, the matter came to Balangir SP Nitin Kusalkar’s attention. A probe ordered by Kusalkar found that the police personnel at Sindhikela had, in fact, erred grossly.
“The policemen killed and cooked my goat. My daughters had seen them killing my goat. They saw it from a distance and cried. When I came to complain, the officer threatened me and put me in the lock-up as if I had committed some crime,” said Sankirtan Guru, a poor farmer who rears a few goats for some extra money.
Goat meat, selling at prices ranging between ₹600 and ₹800 per kilogram in Odisha, is in high demand as it is often the delicacy of choice in yearend and New Year’s Day celebrations.
“ASI Suman Mallick not only erred big by capturing and killing the goat for the feast without the goat owner’s permission, he misused his powers by threatening the villager and putting him in the lock-up. As per the inquiry report about the incident, the ASI was put under suspension,” said an official at the SP’s office.
News of the ASI’s suspension within hours of a complaint received against him was hailed across Odisha. Some commentators even cited this as a “real example” of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s much-hyped 5T initiative. The five T’s stand for ‘Transparency, Technology, Teamwork, Time and Transformation’.
“This is certainly an exemplary development. Odisha’s people will love it if all probes against erring police and administrative officials are conducted with swiftness and acted upon,” said Rabi Das, a noted political observer.