Mumbai Police: Police too busy with VIPs?

MUMBAI: The Pune police's failure to nab a builder's killers over a year and a half after he was shot dead in broad daylight led the Bombay high court to ask if there were enough police personnel to probe cases.

"How many police officers has the state recruited in the last 10 years?" asked a division bench of Justices B H Marlapalle and U D Salvi. The judges took potshots at police deployment for VIP security duty. "It has become a prestige for one person to be accompanied by two police security (personnel)," said the judges, adding, "How many police officers have been deputed for VIP security in the last 10 years?" asked the judges.

During an earlier hearing in the case, the court had come down on the Pune police's 'lethargy' and said that the force seemed so overburdened with VIP and bandobast duty that they could not effectively tackle crime.

Public prosecutor P A Pol said that the police was "well equipped". But this failed to convince the judges, who questioned the lack of progress in the investigations. "You have not identified even one suspect in the case," said the judges.

The court indicated that it may transfer the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and sought the presence of an officer from the investigation agency in court on June 13.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Ashwini, wife of builder Nikhil Rane and a resident of Bhosale Nagar in Pune. Rane was shot by assailants while he was climbing the stairs of his office on November 23, 2009. Rane died seven days later.

The police had arrested four persons for allegedly making extortion calls to Rane prior to his murder. Following investigations, the quartet was charged with offences related to extortion, but no murder charges were filed against them. In her petition, Ashwini claimed that despite repeatedly following up with the Shivajinagar police, the only response that she got was that the "investigation was going on". Ashwini accused the police of not relying on modern investigation techniques and felt the force was "not at all serious about investigating" her husband's murder.

The court had earlier suggested that the police should have a specialized crime investigation department that would not be burdened with bandobast duty.