Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): With the new criminal laws enforced across the country, the primary concern of the senior police officials here is to also identify the corrupt cops who often accept bribes to shield criminals booked under serious offences.
The senior officers stated that the cops indulging in wrongdoings shall face a jail term for longer periods of time, which was limited to just one year when the IPC was in force.
The officials told Free Press that the corrupt police personnel shall be subject to action under Section 251 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Earlier, the cops accepting bribes were booked under Section 171B of the IPC.
Senior crime branch officials maintained that besides action against the corrupt police personnel, the section shall also be invoked against the person who offers the bribe. Not necessarily money, but any other favour or gifts offered to the cops shall also be treated as a bribe, they added.
Sources at the cityís police commissionerate system highlighted a downside, stating that the offences under the said section are non cognizable, and bailable, owing to which, the corrupt police personnel could set themselves free even after being jailed.
Punishment provisions
Additional Commissioner of Bhopal (law and order/crime), Awadhesh Goswami said that under Section 251 of the BNS, if a cop is found to be shielding a murder accused by accepting bribe, he/she shall face seven years of jail term. Additionally, the cops trying to safeguard a criminal sentenced for life will have to face a three-year jail imprisonment, he added.
FIR under ordinary sections to shield criminals
It is noteworthy that in the last one year, almost no incidences of police personnel demanding bribes have made their way to the police records as the cops have concocted a new way to shield criminals. People with knowledge of the matter told Free Press that a total of 36 such instances have been reported in the state capital in the past one year, where the police personnel, although do not ask for bribes, but register FIR of complainants under ordinary sections to botch up the case later.
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A major incident that was reported this year pertained to assault by the son of a minister of state, Narendra Shivaji Patel. His son, Abhigyaan Patel, had assaulted a journalist, as well as a restauranteur couple in the middle of the road in February this year, and the police had booked him under ordinary sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
