HYDERABAD: Thirty-two policemen were sent to quarter guard by Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Hyderabad Adeel Chandio for their “wrongdoings, antisocial activities and collection of extortion for allowing different activities” in the city.

In police’s jargon these policemen are considered ‘beaters’ who faced this action for the first time, on Wednesday and Thursday.

The SSP told Dawn that in the next phase, some SHOs with questionable background would have to face the music. “Right now an inquiry is being conducted against those policemen who are presently confined in police headquarters as mark of punishment,” said the SSP. They would face formal inquiries and when certain charges were established against them, they would face punishment, he said. ASIs, police head constables and constables are among the accused.

Police sources said the SSP had called 41 such ‘beaters’ to his office on Wednesday where a prisoners’ van was available. They were huddled together in the van and shifted to the police headquarters to be kept in ‘confinement’ amidst reports that the SSP had obtained information about these policemen. In fact 41 were called and around nine of them had slipped from his office. Total 25 were initially caught and shifted to the police headquarters. Latest reports said that the number of policemen currently in quarter guard had increased to 32 and the remaining were being pursued so that they should surrender.

“These policemen are those whose primary job is to collect money from different areas where certain illegal activities continue under the very nose of police, SHO, DSP or even SSP concerned at different times,” said an inspector.

“They collect ‘monthly’ or ‘weekly’ from dens of gambling, narcotics, liquor’s sale, mainpuri’s sale and that of fake oil,” he said. ‘Beaters’, he stated, were those who were part of ‘special police’ of the police station concerned and they acted on behalf of the SHO.

According to another police source, surprisingly not a single ‘beater’ from the Hyderabad CIA centre is among them facing the action. The CIA Centre is a police wing that usually combats crime alongside regular police force or handles special cases of kidnapping, murders, mysterious murders and other cases of homicide and anti-state activities.

At the same time, the CIA presently has around a dozen such ‘beaters’ — led by a head constable — and a police source confided that its network also included some private persons impersonating policemen in order to collect money by supporting crime at the grass-root level. There is none to hold CIA’s team accountable.

“Black sheep will be purged from the district after formal inquiries which they are going to face now,” SSP Chandio said. He said he got a survey conducted at each police station about the activities of those beaters and then this action was finally taken. He also said that policemen with such background would not be allowed to tarnish police’s image or to continue illegal activities in the city under any name.

Police sources pointed out that those ‘beaters’ could not act on their own unless and until they got a go-ahead of the SHO concerned. ‘Mokkal’ — a Sindhi word which means ‘leave’ — is a term used by policemen for allowing certain activity that is not allowed under law.

There were reports that ‘mokkal’ for sale of mainpuri, otherwise banned under the Sindh High Court’s (SHC) directives, was allowed to a man who is notorious for illegal liquor business. When the SHC had got licensed liquor shops closed, he was found selling liquor in his car or through his henchmen in Qasimabad and other parts of the city.

Hyderabad police had launched a crackdown last year against trade of betel nut that is used in manufacturing of mainpuri. The traders had to pay bribe for getting their betel nut released from police custody. The betel nut traders have, however, lost their petition filed in the Sindh High Court Hyderabad circuit bench.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2018