In this blog post, Ishita Mehta, a final year law student from Christ University Bengaluru explains the things to be done if the police harasses a person.

Introduction

Police harassment is an abuse of an officer’s authority by continually or arbitrarily stopping someone,  questioning him or her, or by conducting an unwarranted or illegal search and seizure. Law enforcement officers have used questioning, search and seizure, arrest, and accusation to harass ordinary citizens. Law enforcement officers have the right and the duty to stop and question any citizen, whenever a felony has been committed and they have reasonable grounds to believe that the citizen may have been involved in that felony. However, citizens have constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizures, interrogation without counsel, and unlawful detainment.

In the event that and when you feel badgered by the police, or one officer in particular, the primary thing you ought to dependably do is record a badgering grievance against the cop you feel annoyed by, at the police headquarters in the ward where the cop is utilized. On the off chance that that doesn’t end the badgering, recording an objection inside the Internal Affairs Bureau is frequently the best course to take.

Harassment is both a criminal offence and a civil action under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

Things To Do

By and large, once your rights have been abused by a cop, whether it was an issue of unreasonable utilization of compel, a false capture, or whatever other of the huge numbers of sorts of offense out there, you’ll almost certainly be captured, regardless of the possibility that lone as a way to cover for the first rights infringement. In this way, first things to start with, the privilege to be noiseless is your closest companion.

Mostly people start thinking about filing a civil suit or complaint. Also documentation is very important . If you see a police misconduct, immediately write down exactly what happened as soon as you can, before you call anyone.

Some important details to document:

-A precise timeline of events along with your best guess at when each event occurred.

-Where each event happened within the time line.

-Who witnessed each event, if you don’t know names then write down descriptions with as much detail as possible.

-Who did what, when did they do it, in front of whom, and what was said.

In your own words describe everything that happened from the very start of the police encounter to the end. When quoting yourself or the officer try to use exact words. Be specific about the location, time of day, etc. Replay the events slowly in your head to help remember as many details as possible.

Also  witness’s names and contact information and the officers’ names, physical descriptions, car number and badge numbers should be included.  If necessary, return to the scene of the incident to talk to possible witnesses. This might also help jog your memory about other important details. Only include facts that you’re sure about. Be very careful to avoid inaccuracies. These can easily damage your credibility and undermine your important work.

Publicize  this incident there and ask them to take action. File a complaint in writing with the commissioner of police, with all the details of the incident as you recall – including any identifiers of the policeman in question. Higher ups are usually sympathetic to genuine complaints brought through a formal process. File an FIR regarding the incident at the jurisdictional police station.

This step is essential if you were arrested following the incident. (If you were not arrested, it’s optional but recommended ). Victims of police misconduct are often forcefully prosecuted in order to gain leverage in case the victim files a lawsuit. If you’re caught in a situation like this, you need a good police misconduct attorney immediately. Avoid attorneys who work in many different areas of the law.

Police offense cases are testing, and legal counselors take a considerable measure to troublesome individuals. Separate yourself by being quiet and all around composed. Regardless of whether you were not accused of a wrongdoing taking after the episode, you may at present need to seek after a common suit against the police. A lawyer will help you figure out if you have a sufficiently solid case.

This step cannot begin until all criminal charges and civil actions have been resolved. Prematurely filing a police misconduct report will hurt your chances in court by revealing too much information to the police. (Of course, if you weren’t charged with a crime and you’re not suing, file the complaint right away.)The materials you prepared (documentation)  will form the body of your complaint. The police may try and contact you by phone or mail to do a “follow up” about your complaint. Don’t answer any questions and never go down to the police station for an interview. Tell them everything they need to know is in the letter you sent and then say good bye. Stick to what you said in your complaint letter and say nothing else.

A police complaint will not get a victim compensated for police abuse and police complaints are not lawsuits. If you file a complaint against a police officer and the police clear themselves as they often do, the only recourse you may have is a civil lawsuit. In a civil lawsuit you may receive compensation if you and your attorney can prove damages or civil rights violations. Contact a competent civil rights attorney if you need more information about filing a lawsuit for civil rights violations. If you’re interested in knowing what complaints have been filed against police officers in your community, you may request a copy of that information be sent to you from that police agency

Writing to media harnesses the power of social network. Get yourself a lawyer and remember the policeman’s actions might do less harm to the society than your silence. These days media and other social networks have been a major platform to write down and convey all the problems which are being dealt in day to day life including police harassment.

To fight police abuse effectively, you must have realistic expectations. You must not expect too much of any one remedy because no single remedy will cure the problem. A “mix” of reforms is required. And even after citizen action has won reforms, your community must keep the pressure on through monitoring and oversight to ensure that the reforms are actually implemented.

Nonetheless, even one person, or a small group of persistent people, can make a big difference. Sometimes outmoded and abusive police practices prevail largely because no one has ever questioned them. In such cases, the simple act of spotlighting a problem can have a powerful effect that leads to reform. Just by raising questions, one person or a few people — who need not be experts — can open up some corner of the all-too-secretive and insular world of policing to public scrutiny. Depending on what is revealed, their inquiries can snowball into a full blown examination by the media, the public and politicians.

There are lot of things Police officers do which results in the harassment by them. Those things include:

1. Police shootings-  You need to know about police firearm discharges, which refer to the number of times a police weapon has been fired. This information is more complete than statistics on the number of persons shot and wounded or killed. (However, information on the race of persons shot and wounded or killed is important.) Particularly important is data on repeat shooters, which can tell you whether some officers fire their weapons at a suspiciously high rate.
2. Use of physical force –  Under any circumstance physical abuse shouldn’t be taken into place. Violent nature can result into grievous results and accidents might resulting into death or harmful injury.

C .Official strategies- You have to comprehend what the nearby police office’s formal, composed arrangements are on how officers should act specifically circumstances. How does the division treat abusive behavior at home protestations? What is the approach on how officers should manage vagrants? Does the division utilize canine watches and, assuming this is the case, under what conditions? In looking at authority strategies, you have to assess them in contrast with suggested norms.

1. Claims- You have to know what number of claims natives have documented against your nearby police division. You’ll need to realize what the charges were, the quantity of officers included, whether certain officers are named over and over in suits, what was the result and, on account of fruitful suits, how much the city paid in harm.

What To Do If Harassed By The Traffic Police

To increase transparency in working of Delhi Traffic police and reduce possibility of misuse of prosecution power an order has been issued  today clarifying the prosecution powers of Head Constables of Police.

In brief what the order says is that no Head Constable can prosecute anybody for any offence which presently has a penalty for more than 100 Rs per offence. If any official threaten you with challan for Rs. 1,100 he is misuing his powers and if you know that he cannot issue a challan for this amount you can go ahead and ask him to issue challan. It is certain that once you ask for challan and he knows that you are aware that he cannot prosecute you for a violation punishable with penalty of more than 100 Rs. chances are he will not harass you. Yes if someone commit two offences like not wearing helmet and jumping the red light he can rightly issue a challan for 200 Rs for two offences of driving without helmet and jumping the red light.

Police business is by and large covered in mystery, which covers obsolete arrangements and departmental idleness, empowers smoke screens and, obviously, breeds open suspicion. In any case, recollect: Police divisions are an arm of government, and the administration’s business is your business. Police approaches, techniques, memoranda, records, reports, tape recordings, and so on ought not be withheld from general visibility unless their discharge would debilitate progressing examinations, imperil officers or others, or attack somebody’s close to home security. Requesting data about police practices is an essential part of the battle to set up police responsibility. Without a doubt, a battle concentrated exclusively on getting data from the police can serve as a vehicle for arranging a group to handle police manhandle. As to of the accompanying classifications, one of the strategies your group could utilize is to premium a nearby investigative columnist in looking for data from the police for a progression of articles. Once close by, the data your group has gathered or uncovered is an apparatus for considering the police responsible for their activities.

Conclusion

Police misconduct and human rights violations are commonplace in India. What should be an exception is treated as a norm. People are illegally detained and tortured in police stations for days at a time. Abusive intimidation tactics that know no boundaries are incessantly used to break a person. False charges and accusations are lodged in order to get their way. Stalling or slowing the process down of FIR retrieval, deliberate attempts to not follow up a case, delay carrying out an investigation to let mitigating factors come into play are some of the other ways in which police abuses it’s power.

The citizens are extremely fearful of the police. The moment you see a police car next to your house, you start panicking. The kind of fear that the police induces in people is astonishing and shocking. It’s hard to believe that this establishment has been put in place for our own protection and well-being. No one wants to go against the police. No one wants to fight them in case they trap them in a false charge or build a criminal case against them. No one wants to even get involved in a police case. This is the way the police manipulates the citizens to follow their command. They have led people to believe that their authority is absolute and binding, and that they can make life difficult for anyone who opposes them.