The Real Face of Bihar Administration (A true story depicted into the form of a case-study) It’s an incident of 15th February 2014. A nightmarish day for the family of Prakash. Let’s have a glance of the essential scenario before delving into the crux of the matter. Prakash works at a private company in Patna and lives together with his mother, a younger sister and a younger brother. It was an unfortunate quirk of fate that Amod, the younger brother of Prakash, got an attack of bipolar-disorder just two years back. A severe mental illness in terms of medical dictionary. However with timely treatment by a psychiatrist at Patna his disease got pacified to more than considerable extent. Amod along with his family members were too cautious upon the doctor’s advice and he was routinely taking the prescribed medicines. And by God grace and doctor’s effective treatment Amod retreated on the normal track of life. 15th February 2014 was the darkest day for Prakash family. At around 10.20 AM Amod casually went out of the house never to return till now. It was in the evening that after getting assured about his absence from all possible avenues and triggered by a premonitory sense of panic the family registered an FIR at the concerned police station. Since then started the ordeal of the Prakash family. Sleepless nights, incessant fear, uncontrollable anxiety, excruciating restlessness replaced the normal peace of the family. Sensing a mere formal and trivial treatment to the case at the local police station Prakash went to meet the officers at the upper echelons of Bihar administration requesting to give sincere and result-oriented investigative attention to the case. It was Prakash first life experience with the frustrating bureaucratic maze. Many times he was made to seat for five-six monotonous hours outside the chambers of so called responsible bureaucrats and ultimately at the end of the day the officers used to slide away from their chambers shamelessly neglecting the appointment-slip conveyed to them by the staffs on duty. However Prakash didn’t let his moral down and digested every assault in the hope of unharmed recovery of his younger brother. Meanwhile the family mobile phone buzzed with demand for ransom. His family members were warned of menacing consequences in case of any laggardness in the timely disposal of the demanded ransom money. This further aggravated the already panicked state of the family. Prakash went numb with fear and fastened his pace to appeal to the higher authorities of the state. One fine morning Prakash was summoned at the local police station. The in-charge of the police station handed his mobile phone to Prakash directing that an SP rank officer of the state wishes to talk to you. “Good Morning Sir” Prakash greeted the officer with hopeful expectation of some good news about his brother’s recovery. But this positivity of Prakash vanished when the SP started threatening and using obnoxious words from the other side on phone. The manifest intention was to terrorize Prakash. To discourage his moral to tread forward with his committed effort on the case. It was a call to muzzle Prakash’s voice and resolute willingness to recover his mentally unwell brother. One statement of that very SP rank official, apart from his unjustified threats, is really shameful for the entire bureaucratic set-up of Bihar. I think that in the present state of affairs the government is trying to create illusionary sheen of controlled law and order in the state . “If you were really concerned about your brother then why didn’t you chained him and locked him up inside your home. Now do you wish that police should give biological birth to your brother?” The SP said in an overly arrogant and intimidating tone of voice. Being a victim of time and undergoing an intense mental turmoil Prakash anyhow controlled his logical debating impulse against an illogical unwarranted monologue. The thought going on inside Prakash mind was----is this the way a responsible police officer deals with an aggrieved family in Bihar? It was a validated statement from an IPS officer explicitly implying that police administration is only to threaten or impose their illogical whims and fancies over an already distressed family. It upfrontally suggested that if any robbery happens then the victim would be scolded and bullied to have used weaker locks that led to the robbery? If a lady’s gold chain is snatched by hooligans in a dark street of the state then would it be constitutionally fair that the lady should be contrarily blamed to have willingly invited the tragedy by deliberately wearing gold chain? Or every gold ornament manufacturer in the country should be warned by the administration to stop manufacturing gold ornaments? If a rape incident happens in the country then would it be governmentally justified to hold responsible the victim lady for her own traumatic suffering? Or does it calls for an earnest empathy with the victim and taking suitable action to punish the culprit? Isn’t it the very purpose of the existence of administration? This irrelevant and crude threatening call by the SP shattered the faith of Prakash in Bihar administration towards sincere action upon his case. Police was acting combative rather than being democratic. It was an outright breach of the duties and responsibilities that administration is assigned by the constitution. However Prakash is exhausting every bit of his energy and limited resources in searching his brother but still he thinks that it’s a colossal task for a single hand. He has twice approached chief minister’s office as well as all other concerned authorities but till now to no avail. The honest cooperation of bureaucratic machinery and resources is indispensable in this case. It has been almost 45 days since Amod went missing but police is resolute on an evadingly diplomatic and procrastinating stance on the case. In the year 2009 I had written with pride and sheer optimism about my home-state Bihar and its improving state of affairs published in “THE HINDU” newspaper under the title “I AM A BIHARI”. But it seems that again a sense of complacency, apathy and arrogance has crept up in the bureaucratic set-up of the state. I appeal to the incumbent government to extend a helping hand to the aggrieved family instead of aggravating their agony and devising plans to reactively combat the case instead of providing concrete solution. Every single case holds its own specific importance whose obvious agony cannot be compared and disparaged as mere trivial on any ground. That too for a mentally challenged missing boy who must be in a pitiable condition. More importantly, the mere imagination of the mentally diseased missing boy freezes the blood of already wounded family. This cannot be better understood by anyone else other than the suffering family. No one knows when the destiny capsizes the boat of either a common man or a man of clout and power. There should not be any discrimination and apathetic avoidance in any case. It’s for sure that the resolution of this case is not beyond the will-power, reach and capacity of the administration. It’s only a matter of timely and effective implementation of the bureaucratic machinery....!!!
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 21:42:52 +0000
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