Kerala: Bid to derail driver assault case

In what is being described as a typical example of how top police officials use their power and influence, efforts are reportedly on to derail a case registered against the daughter of senior IPS officer and Additional Director General of Police Sudesh Kumar for allegedly assaulting his police driver, Gavaskar, in his official vehicle even as a class held with the objective of improving quality of policing ended in chaos.

The latest in a series of efforts to derail the case against the ADGP’s daughter is manipulation in the official record of vehicle usage by Sudesh Kumar with the intention of establishing that it was not Gavaskar but some other driver who was on duty at the time of the incident and therefore the allegation against her could not be true.

According to Gavaskar, the ADGP’s daughter had abused him verbally and hit him hard with her mobile phone on his neck and shoulders on June 14. The police had registered a case against the ADGP’s daughter for voluntarily causing hurt to prevent a public servant from performing his duty, verbally abusing a person and for causing hurt using weapon.

Also, a case was registered against Gavaskar on the basis of a counter-complaint lodged by the ADGP’s daughter under Section 354 for outraging the modesty of woman. A medical report had confirmed that Gavaskar, who was discharged from hospital after treatment on Saturday, had suffered injuries in the neck. The police’s Crime Branch is currently probing both the cases.

As per Gavaskar’s complaint, the ADGP’s daughter had assaulted him on the morning of June 14 when he had taken her and her mother out in the official vehicle for morning walk. Allegations have now come up that the vehicle record with the ADGP has been manipulated to show that it was not Gavaskar but another police driver, Jaison, who was on duty on the particular day.

However, Jaison told the Crime Branch that he had not driven such a vehicle on the particular day and that his name was incorporated in the vehicle record as requested by another driver. “This is just one example of the manipulations being carried out to protect the ADGP’s daughter,” said a representative of the Kerala Police Association.

The Crime Branch has already found out that the allegation leveled by the ADGP’s daughter that Gavaskar had made the official vehicle’s wheel hit her legs on June 14 was be true. The doctors at the hospital where she had sought medical help told the investigators that she had been hit by an autorikshaw. She also did not agree to undergo a thorough examination, they said.

Allegations have already come up that the Crime Branch is delaying action on the basis of Gavaskar’s complaint in order to facilitate efforts to put pressure on him for agreeing to a settlement in the case against the ADGP’s daughter who is reportedly preparing seeking entry into civil service. It is said that a case of this nature could affect her objective adversely.

Meanwhile, a class held the other day as part of a programme for bringing positive changes to the quality of policing ended in chaos with the main lecturer, former State police chief KJ Joseph, accusing the Kerala Police Officers Association of interfering in investigations and an association leader challenging him to prove his allegation.

The training session was held at the Police Training College at Thycaud, Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday under the leadership of former DGPs of the State for officers in the ranks of Circle Inspector and Sub Inspector in the context of the mounting complaints about the police’s general attitude and interactions with the people.

During his lecture, former DGP Joseph said interferences by the association were causing problems in investigations and its president DK Prithviraj retorted by challenging him to cite at least one such incident. State police chief Loknath Behera reportedly took a pro-association stand by saying that external interferences were not taking place in investigations.

The feud at the training session triggered an extensive campaign in the social media groups of the association against Joseph and those who supported his viewpoint.

One such post said that Joseph, during whose term as DGP personnel in Kerala Police suffered the worst kind of persecution, did not have the right to level such an allegation and to handle such classes.