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A police officer from Jammu and Kashmir is reportedly being punished for speaking to the press about the harassment he was subjected to by his counterparts in New Delhi.
The Delhi police had hauled up Superintendent of Police, Baramulla, Sheikh Abdul Rashid on July 30 on the suspicion of being a Kashmiri insurgent.
Despite showing papers to prove that he was a cop and had been invited to attend a home ministry-hosted conference, Rashid was dragged out of his cousin's home in a south Delhi neighbourhood and detained for over five hours.
As punishment, Rashid has now been posted to distant Leh in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, his security guards and government vehicle have been withdrawn and he has been evicted from his official residence, The Indian Express newspaper reported on Wednesday.
These moves come after a senior officer in the home ministry sent a note to the Jammu and Kashmir government saying Rashid should "not be allowed to go unpunished" for going to the press with the incident.
Rashid was earlier in charge of prisons in Baramulla. He was shifted from Rajouri after thwarting an attempted jailbreak there in February, which heightened the threat to his life.
Before leaving for Leh, Rashid has reportedly been asked to go to Pulwama on official work without security. "My life is in danger and I have requested for security," Rashid told the Express.
He claimed that after the incident in New Delhi, senior officers of the city police force had met him, apologised for the episode and asked him to recommend pardon, in writing, for the erring personnel. "I did so, but I asked them to advise the men not to repeat such misbehaviour," he said.
"When I returned from New Delhi, my superiors asked me to submit a report. They were sympathetic, but when the letter arrived from the Union home ministry, everything changed," Rashid said.
His transfer order was issued at 2.00 pm on August 28 and his successor came to take over within an hour-and-a-half. "I have no doubt this was done to prevent me from going to court," Rashid was quoted as saying. "And then, I was literally thrown on the road with my family."
State police officers, however, maintain that Rashid's was one among several "routine transfers" within the force.
P D Shenoy, special secretary in the Union home ministry on whose orders action was taken against Rashid, told the paper: "The Centre did not mean punishment of this kind."
Indo-Asian News Service
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