An Interesting Experience

Knocking on the doors of a complete stranger at half past five in the morning is something unusual, but when one does it with a dozen cops in tow it becomes something very unusual. That is what I did last Thursday. I was asked to accompany a team of anti-corruption cops as a witness to search the house of an official accused of being corrupt and amassing wealth. It was a hush hush operation right from the word go and ended up in an arrest and lots of drama. I was in the news, this time on television, for something not related to my writing.

A colleague in the office who was supposed to report for the operation the previous evening asked me to go in his place. When I agreed to go I didn’t know that it would be a three day operation with enough drama to last me a lifetime. I was asked to report at five am the next day and I arrived promptly after spending a sleepless night. We left in a Tata Sumo, the standard vehicle of cops, all six of us and six more cops on bikes. We reached Madhapur in the darkness and waited for a signal from other cops who had gone ahead on bikes.

We parked the Sumo and got down even as the sky began to light up with the approaching dawn. At a signal we rushed to a five-storeyed building under construction and knocked on the door of a flat. A middle aged lady opened the door only to be bewildered to see all twelve of us at her doorstep. Even before she could realize what was happening a warrant was thrust at her to read. Then the search began. The cops went through each room, each cupboard, each drawer taking out bills, articles and every thing out. They heaped all the stuff on a mat spread on the floor and methodically sorted everything in separate piles. They filed something like a million documents that were seized.

The lady was a municipal official working in a section responsible for giving building permissions. Someone had tipped off the anti-corruption cops that she was taking heavy bribes. What we came across was appalling. The lady was building a five storey structure that had eight three bed room portions and a penthouse. She claimed that they had spent around sixty lakhs rupees on it but could not account how she came to earn so much from her small job. The ultimate irony was that the lady built the structure without any permission in an area where the municipality was not issuing any building permissions! The market value of the completed flats could be a couple of crores.

A couple of hours into the search the news reporters swarmed the place with their cameras and hand held mikes. The lady shielded her face with the edge of her sari. Later we saw it on television as ‘breaking news’. It was an educational experience. The cops were polite with the house owners and offered them breakfast, tea and lunch to them in their own house! The search went on until late afternoon and at the last minute the cops found something that led to an arrest.

The husband of the lady had hidden eleven bottles of whisky in an attic of a store room. The bottles were CSD issue, that is, only defence personnel are authorized to keep them. The Excise officials were summoned and they arrested the man despite the pleadings of the lady. He was taken in a jeep to be kept in a lock-up overnight. I felt very sorry for the guy.

It was quite a revelation about how corruption takes a toll. The lady seemed to be totally unconcerned about her corrupt image. Her husband seemed to be fond of liquor. In fact, when we entered the building the first thing we noticed was a glass and a packed of peanuts on the table. Their twenty one year old son seemed to be going the wrong way though he was a national level skating champion. There were cigarette butts every where. It wasn’t a well kept house. Their daughter was married only a couple of months ago and staying in the United States. The cops were triumphant about the success of the operation. I later learnt that I have to keep appearing in the courts for years together until the case is heard to the end. This is just the beginning of my court experiences.

The second experience was even more dramatic and I’ll write about it in the future posts. It is about the arrest of a top cop in a most dramatic manner. It was an experience I won’t forget so easily.