Two months back Bareilly heralded the transfer of Anand Swarup as Senior Superintendent of Police, Bareilly with front page headlines of an encounter specialist coming to town. Media went agog over it. However, it’s been more than two months now and media is busy witnessing a different kind of spectacle, here. Almost every Saturday they have a bagful of stories of wife mending relationship with husband, brothers settling disputes and dowry cases and sometimes, they even act as judges in some cases. Well, thinking about covering an encounter is a thing of past now.
Everybody is involved in ‘Project Didi’. Be it community leaders, politicians, police, journalists and social workers. They all are a part of the surrogate joint family and pronounce judgements relating to family and marital disputes and try to settle it amicably without registering a case. If the concerned person is still unhappy about the judgement, they can lodge an FIR and then proceed to court.
Again this is the brainchild of SSP Anand Swarup who started this project in Bareilly in 2002 during his previous posting. He continued this project to wherever he went in Etah, in Firozabad and now back again in his old robes in Bareilly. “After a certain point of time in your career when you begin to realise the mystery of the day to day functioning, your mind begins to wander into the innovations in your working. This is how I bumped into the idea of criminal policing and social policing.”
“In the area of social policing, family disputes and marital disputes does not require either police or court intervention. The joint family setup was the panacea. We lost it in the run to materialism. So I tried to restore it. Collected the doctors and teachers and lawyers of the society and asked them to spare a day for us. We ensured the warring sides of the family are put together before them and asked them to solve their problem like a joint family would,” he adds.
Take the case of 25-year-old Rashmi Sharma. It was a complex case of her alleging that her one-and-a-half year old daughter Gungun’s father is her brother-in law Virender and that her husband Rajesh is having an affair with Preeti, Virender’s wife. Rashmi came to the police alleging that Virender has now stopped giving money to her for the upkeep of the baby. According to Rashmi, she was having affair with Virender for the past three years and he was running both the household, since Rashmi’s husband was a drunkard and unemployed. A complex case and it would have taken years for the judgement to pass, had they gone to the court.
The case was handled by Madhu Aggarwal, a municipal corporator and lady police officers of the district and finally the matter was settled by asking the four brothers to jointly take responsibility of the baby and deposit Rs 1,000 every month in her account for the next 18 years. Although not an easy job, after much trials and tribulations this was done. Says, Madhu Aggarwal, “Although it is not an easy job, still we are able to resolve cases in maximum four sittings. That’s the benchmark. If it takes more, then obviously the matter is resolved in courts.” 
Pawan Mishra, a youth leader in Bareilly, who is also involved with then project says, “This project has tremendous social implications. Most of the crime incidents happen when there is infighting among the family members. Court cases keep on lingering the family disputes and anything can happen during the heat of the moment. A rapid and out of court settlement helps bridge the gap and thus the crime rate comes down. This also saves them from the fleecing advocates and relieves the judiciary from the extra burden of cases.”
Mishra feels that this exercise also helps in connecting the leaders as well as police to the mass. Jawahar Sinha, a lecturer in Bareilly College, who says, “In three years we have received about 2,300 family disputes and we have settled almost 1,500 such cases. Everyday the police receive applications and it is compiled and then passed on to us on Saturdays by the police. We have an office in police lines and every Saturday we sit and review these cases and conduct hearings. We have divided 12 counsellors into four groups and each group looks into a case.”
Regarding cases, most of them are related to dowry. 62-year-old Surjit Singh, a businessman by profession feels that his degree is law is now coming to use. His knowledge of the law, although unutilized till now, helps him to resolve cases. He says, “Till now I have resolved 60 cases successfully relating to dowry. Among the dowry applications, only 20 per cent are genuine. Rest 80 per cent were just to put pressure on the groom side to take better care of their daughters,” he adds.
Qamar Akhtar, a hotelier in Bareilly citing a case says, “15 days back we resolved a case in which a young couple were having marital problems only because of ego problems of their parents. This was a no case, but life for Deepesh and Neha was hell and that too it was an arranged marriage.”
25-year-old Deepesh Saksena, a junior engineer in the hydel project in Bareilly married Neha four months back. “Although we liked each other, but there was a continuous misunderstanding between our parents. So for four months it was hell. Due to the ego problems of our parents we were made to suffer,” he adds. His wife Neha, however, is now relieved after this ordeal ended. “Thank god that we had a quick hearing and the matter was solved out of court only. Otherwise it’s very difficult for ladies going to the court thousand people are looking at you. In courts, everything is in the open, but here one gets a bit of privacy also,” adds 23-year-old Neha.
Social worker Pawan Kumar Aggarwal feels, “It’s very difficult for a lady to go to the court. You are a centre of attraction there. Moreover, kind of money people spend in court cases is a lot and even worthless. Only advocates have the last laugh here. And in court one has to give proofs and a lot depends on the integrity of the lawyer too. And we don’t give judgements in cases, we give them the solutions, if the feuding parties accept, it is well and good otherwise we ask the police to register cases and then the matter is goes to court.”
Swarup although feels, “In both my previous postings (Etah and Ferozabad), criminal policing project was the first thing that I undertook. Since Bareilly sees more of family dispute and crime is only limited to certain pockets so I focused on Project Didi here first. It is running smoothly and successfully now, so I am turning towards criminal policing now.”
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
