By Arfat Khan
Smashing of cars with base ball is not only an act of abnormality but reflection of complete absence of discipline in the traffic wing of Jammu and Kashmir Police.
Resorting to violence is not a new thing for cops entrusted with the job of regulating traffic in the region and the archives of digital news portals and newspapers speaks volume about it.
Recently, the entire region aghast to see ugly show of misuse of power by traffic authority at Udhampur TCP where a senior judicial officer (CJM) was roughed when the latter questioned the high handedness of traffic cops on the road.
It’s pertinent to note here that except ugly villains in Hindi films, nowhere in the civilized country, the cops were seen roaming with lethal base ball sticks to regulate traffic and penalised the offenders.
If this is happening in the Union Territory of J&K where tourism is a major industry then yesterday incident at Traffic Check Post Nagotra, which is notorious for daily collection of bag full of ill gotten money from commercial vehicles, is a wakeup call for higher ups in Police Head Quarter to initiate realignment exercise to avoid earning further shame.
Rebuttals, enquiries and suspensions would not work as it’s a proven fact that these are just a ploy to shield corrupt and emboldened their wrongful acts.
Yesterday incident has sparked anger and resentment among citizens over the fatal injuries received in the eyes of a girl when eccentric traffic cop broken the rear window panes of the SUV car with base ball stick.
This shocking incident has left the other passerby travellers enraged and sensing their act of folly, the accused cop along with his colleagues run away from the spot.
The offenders needs to be penalised on road and there is no denying the fact that Traffic Police is handling herculean task on roads in the region despite facing acute shortage of manpower.
But, the higher ups in the department needs to understand that civilians and vehicles are not punching bags for their frustration and instead of indiscriminately penalising the civilians, they need to concentrate on overloading commercial vehicles, fleets of unfit cement load careers, illegal auto stands, over loaded passengers vehicles, unauthorised tractor trollies moving freely in broad day light so that the department could accomplished the assigned revenue targets of government.
But, this revolutionary reform is possible only when the old existing system of bids for Haj (Lakhanpur posting) Umarah (TCP Nagrota posting) and Chaar Dham (Rural traffic posting) stopped immediately so that huge amount collected on daily basis would directly goes into the Govt coffers instead of Base Ball carrying traffic cops.
Threatening civilians and Journalists on roads would only further deepen the mess surrounding the Traffic Police department and police in J&K.