Looks like there’s a Taleban hangover in Bhagalpur.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gFOqlCslZE]

An incident of this nature doesn’t require any dramatisation - the facts are disturbing enough. Mohammed Aurangzeb, also known as Salim, apparently stole a gold chain, a crime for which he nearly lost his life.

In the video, Aurangzeb can seen kicked in the face and abdomen, and thrashed by the Bhagalpur mob. He was even whipped with a belt, before being dragged on a motorbike on his stomach, his hands tried to the bike. The bike seemed to belong to the police. It’s barbaric rider, a sub-inspector.

What kind of discipline is instilled into these officers? What kind of barbarism is this? Where are the human rights gone? With which face do we as Indians now tell the world that we are a democracy? This is stuff right out of pre-historic India - has God really given up on Bihar?

And this isn’t the first incident either. Authorities have first used, misused, overused and now abused their power in enforcing law. Women have been raped, students have been beaten, petty theives nearly pay with their life, and many a criminal has lost his life to an encounter. Those who have been ‘encountered’, of course, are more often than not convicted criminals beyond repair. Not that innocent people have never been encountered, but hey.

Police brutality has always been there in India. It has been researched, and action points recommended, but clearly, little has happened since. That report of 1996 is extremely relevant, even today.

Someone at a top level of the State needs to act. Extreme force is potentially justifiable in the wake of an emergency, or when things go out of hand. The only good that has come out of this incident, is that it’s struck fear into the hearts of many theives around the nation who might see the video. But at what cost?

Indeed, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?