Night of shame continues……

At around this time, a senior politician’s son demanded my resignation on TV. This was quickly followed by his parent’s demand for the same. When the protestors heard of these demands, they quite naturally took the cue and joined the chorus. Very soon, it became a campaign not so much against the Delhi Police but against me. Both in print and electronic media, the speculation centred on my ouster.  On one occasion, when asked why I refused to hand in my resignation papers, I replied, ‘I am not a quitter. Indeed a most ghastly crime has been committed under my charge. My job is to ensure that all culprits are arrested and brought to trial. As long as the government has faith in me, I will continue pursuing the case and not turn my back.’

The following day, a leading newspaper carried the banner headline that I had refused to quit, implying that the most logical thing for me to do in the situation was to leave, Or for the government to sack me. And here I was, with no business to continue as commissioner of police, refusing to budge from my seat. My mobile phone was inundated with messages—both text and WhatsApp—asking me in vulgar and nasty language to quit. My family members, particularly my daughters, were threatened with dire consequences including rape. The poor girls, realizing that they should not add to my woes, kept this information to themselves and shared it with me only after the storm had blown over.

Nobody was prepared to come out on any platform and defend us; there was no one to say that it was no fault of ours and that we had done well to crack the case so quickly. Neither any political leader in the government nor any senior bureaucrat in the home ministry was willing to tell the public that the police had responded to the situation professionally.

To be continued……