The right to private defence under cover of which the policeman uses his gun is not an absolute right; it is justiceable. If the court holds that in given circumstance the right of private defence has been exceeded, a police officer concerned can be prosecuted for culpable homicide.

The demoralisation in the Mumbai police today stemming from the on-going judicial enquiry into alleged fake encounters is the outcome of glorification of officers involved in encounter deaths of gangsters and the public pronouncements being made by politicians that they have issued orders to kill gangsters in encounters. While the gangsters are not entitled to any sympathy from society and must be subjected to stringent action, declarations by responsible executives that killing gangstersin encounters is the official policy of the government are highly misleading and certainly counter-productive.

Gimmicks such as creating `hit-squads' or `special carbine-toting squads' will not control the shootouts either. Such squads can at best serve as a task force to carry out surgical strikes on gangsters' hideouts, based on specific information.

What is required is to return to the basics of policing. Basic policing can work as a bulwark against criminals and crime. The basics include intensive beat patrolling; closer interaction with the public; watch and surveillance over known criminals; building an effective network of informants, sources and contacts; effective preventive action against bad elements; proper investigation and detection of crime; quick disposal of cases in the court; and close supervision by senior officers. Every mafia killing is followed by a public hue and cry and press coverage. The law and order situation collapses. To the citizen's chagrin, politicians present a rosypicture of the law and order situation on the ground that the spurt in the shoot-outs has not affected the city as only persons who have gangland connections are getting killed.

However, nowadays even ordinary citizens, including some petty businessmen, are being targeted by gangsters. Sometimes the government reacts in a knee-jerk manner by transferring senior officers and suspending junior officers. Transfers and suspensions can never remedy the malaise that has crept into the police force. The government is talking about management by objectives and is applying the latest theories in managing other departments of the government. But in the police department, ad-hocism still prevails.Till today, despite specific recommendations by the Sathe Committee of 1975 to lay down certain yardsticks to determine the number of policemen and officers in particular police station, nothing has been implemented. The government is sitting on the proposal. The police force of the city is numerically inadequate to deal withthe growing population and increase in crime. On a rough estimate, the strength of the Mumbai police needs to be augmented by at least 30 per cent, which works out to around 12,000 additional men. Currently there are only 38,000 to 40,000 policemen to police a megacity with a teeming populace of nearly 15 million. The limited, overstretched resources of the Mumbai city police have come under further pressure because of heavy deployment for the protection of so-called VIPs. On an average about 2,000 policemen and over 100 jeeps and cars are deployed on such duty.

VIP security has become a status symbol. There are many so-called VIPs who move around with a posse of gun-toting guards when actually there is no threat to their lives. A person who has the right connections with politicians or bureaucrats can get himself classified as needing Z-plus security.

In 1996 about 75 Gypsies and 100 motor-bikes were procured and deployed at 75 strategic locations with wireless sets. It is learnt that all these vehicleswere withdrawn from those strategic locations and are now being used as escorts for so-called VIPs on most of whom no one would dream of wasting a bullet!

In the Mumbai police, unlike any other police force in the world, constables work on 12-hour shifts with no weekly offs, in total violation of existing labour laws. For the extra four hours which the constable puts in every day, he is paid a paltry sum of Rs 20 per day as refreshment allowance, though labour laws require that he be paid twice the normal wages, which is around Rs 150 for four extra hours every day. The policemen are being physically, mentally, and monetarily exploited. The constabulary is overworked and underpaid. More than 40 per cent of Mumbai's policemen live in slums. The escape of notorious criminal Feroz Konkani from police custody highlights a dangerous trend. The low-paid and ill cared for policeman are being `purchased' by the powerful mafia. Suspending a few policemen will not help. The malady goes much deeper. Pay them well, andlook after them.

R D Tyagi was the Police Commissioner of Mumbai during November 1995 to October 1996 and retired as Director General of the elite National Security Guards (NSG), New Delhi.

(This photograph was taken in 1996, when a rival gangster tried to attack Dawood man Sadhu Shetty in the Sessions Court. Subsequently, the cops took him to the Oval and threw a security ring around him.)