Karnataka liquor lobby growls: Will police force fold?

Is her fight against illegal liquor dealers the cause of DySP Anupama Shenoy’s sudden resignation? Her strongly-worded Facebook post certainly indicates it, for trouble ensued after the arrest of local politicians. With even the best-intentioned cops giving to mafia demands, where does that leave the force? Will Anupama accept defeat or fight on, ask M.G. Chetan, Bellie Thomas and Gururaj A. Paniyadi

The threatened stir by the state constabulary in protest against, among other things,  political interference in police work, fizzled out  on Saturday, but by a strange coincidence Kudligi DySP Anupama Shenoy resigned the very same evening hinting at the excise mafia forcing her decision.  It was as if she was holding a mirror to the malaise in the department, which the constabulary had tried to bring to the fore by its thwarted agitation.             

Causing quite a sensation by her sudden decision to quit ,  Ms. Shenoy’s status on Facebook strongly indicated that the excise mafia's pressure tactics was to blame for it.

While not denying that the police come under various kinds of pressure, a senior officer, however believes that quitting is not the solution. “When one is serving in a responsible post, there will obviously be a  lot of pressure. Officers are trained in stress management and in  handling such situations. There is no point in just running away. However, we cannot conclude what exactly happened in this particular case,” he adds.

Former Director General and Inspector General of Police, S. T. Ramesh says its highly likely that those involved in the liquor business have influence in administrative circles. “Most of them will have some connection with one or the other politician as well and will try to use this and money power to get things done their way. This can lead to conflict of interest between them and the law keepers,” he acknowledges.

While he claims to have never had any firsthand experience of such pressure tactics during his years in service,  he says he has been been told of others having to put up with it.   “I have heard that officers in the stations do have to deal with the excise mafia. But nobody has come up to me to complain about it,” he adds.

A serving police inspector, who has worked both in Bengaluru and rural areas, says its difficult to crack down on those in  the liquor business as political interference  almost immediately comes in the way.”Even if one takes just one step against them, the local MLA will call and advise us to go soft on them.  If we go to our senior officers and complain about the MLA’s calls they just advise us to manage things the best we can,” he  says ruefully.

Even if it is a small matter of  shutting down a bar or wine shop,  the police  have to fight every inch of the way to achieve their ends, according to him.  

Cops forced to go easy on hooch?
Liquor lobbies often unleash immense pressure on the state’s enforcement machinery, especially in rural areas to get away with their illegal  businesses. 

The lobbies use their political masters to arm-twist the police against acting on tip-offs about the illegal sale of spurious liquor at provision stores and dhabas in villages and on highways.

Take Doddaballapura taluk where the police say they are constantly under pressure not to act against the rampant sale of spurious liquor in 134 of the  154 villages in the three hoblis of Madura, Sasalu and Belavangala.

Although many of the villages’   small hotels, restaurants, provision stores, petty shops and dhabas sell this liquor illegally, the police finds it hard to crackdown on them.

Says one police officer, “The taluk has over 65 bars and restaurants, besides wine shops . We have credible information that at least three cases of cheap liquor  are dispatched to each of them on a regular basis. We have conducted raids on several provision stores, dhabas and even some houses and recovered liquor  costing a mere Rs. 20 to 30 per packet. But after the raids we started getting calls from the local MLA’s office inviting us  for “peace talks.” 

We later got to know that the MLA’s brother was an office bearer of the Wine Merchants’ Association and the MLA himself has a stake in the bar and restaurant and wine shop businesses in the taluk.”

Even worse, the MLA and his men made veiled threats to the police officers, who conducted the raids, he reveals. “The threats came by way of talking about the officers’ transfers to their higher ups and then negotiating with them to undo the damage,” the officer claims, regretting that the policemen are caught between doing their duty and saving their jobs although they get at least a dozen calls from harried housewives worried about their husbands’ drinking habits and begging them to put an end to the sale of cheap liquor in the village.

“Villagers begin drinking as early as six in the morning and boys as young as 14 are becoming addicted to this liquor that is easily available,” rues a Karalapura villager, K.R. Lokesh, revealing that four to five people die every year in these villages due to health problems arising from  consumption of the spurious liquor.  “Even the rate of suicides has gone up in our villages after the entry of  the liquor mafia,” he regrets.

‘I had nothing to do with Anupama’s resignation’
“There is no need to discuss the resignation of Deputy Superintendent of Police(DySP) of Kudligi, Ms.Anupama Shenoy”, said Labour Minister Parameshwar Naik while reacting to her resignation on Monday.

Speaking at a press conference after a review meeting of the Labour Department at the Deputy Commissioner’s office, Mr Naik said, “it is not an issue to discuss. So I do not want to react to it. I have nothing to do with the resignation of MsShenoy. The Superintendent of Police, Chetan had informed me about her resignation. So I had instructed the SP to take the required action as per the departmental rules.”  On the BJP seeking his resignation, Mr Naik said the job of opposition parties was to demand resignations and there was no need to comment on their statements.