With eyes shut

 

 

Sansar Chand was arrested in June 2005. Wildlife Protection Society of India stated, ‘Sansar Chand is believed to be responsible for more tiger and leopard deaths than anyone else in India.’ By the time he was arrested, four enforcement agencies, including Delhi Police along with CBI, were on his trail and vying for his custody. Yet the real problem begins only after his arrest. The question on everyone’s mind was under which law should he booked to make sure that he doesn’t go off the hook soon. Sadly, under the Indian Penal Code, they could not find a single section which was good enough to finally nail him in a foolproof manner. Net Result? The CBI eventually had to resort to a state law. The CBI press release stated, "the CBI was of the view  that the investigation of the crimes committed by Sansar Chand can be effectively tackled under the provisions of MCOCA."

Showing faith in MCOCA was a tight slap on the face of the Union Law Ministry and those who always advocated that POTA and such laws should be repealed. While India is getting besieged by organised crime of every sort (and not just terrorism) shockingly, it doesn’t have strong Union laws to combat it. Thanks to politics of appeasement.

For any country, it is the Union government which is the pathfinder, charting new courses for making the voyage of the country free of turbulence while endeavouring to evolve as a more upright country. But not in India's case. While the Union Home Minister might just talk about setting up new committees to look into such matters or send a battalion of paramilitary forces to absolve himself of the responsibility, it is the states which always face the brunt of every organised crime, be it terrorism, kidnapping or contract killings which often get planned in one state and get executed in another. So when the Union government continues to repeal strong laws to tackle organised crime, the states have shown wisdom in going ahead to enact them. MCOCA or Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act is one of the most stringent laws to tackle organised crime and states like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh want to have their own versions of the same law to deal with mafia and terrorism. Yet here too politics is playing its part. The Gujarat Control of Organised Crime Act, 2003 is pending for years with the Union Home Ministry for clearance. Maharashtra can have its MCOCA but BJP ruled Gujarat cannot.

Hundreds of Sansar Chands today are being set free because this country lacks strong laws to tackle organised crime. Misuse of laws to harass innocents should never be allowed, but does that mean that the country should not have laws at all? It’s like sending unarmed soldiers to the battlefield lest misfirings kill innocents. With such an attitude the next crime is always round the corner. Sometimes it’s really a wonder that India, in spite of all this, still survives as a nation.