Wednesday, January 10, 2007

The dawn of a new era - SSP Lucknow

Inspired by real life incidents of a SSP of Lucknow, a film ‘Sehar’ (Dawn) has been made that shows the might of organized crime, ever changing dynamics of UP’s politics, railway contracts, politician-mafia-police-builder nexus, activism of criminal gangs, criminalization of University and how the SSP – played by Arshad Warsi – organized a Special Task Force to fight all these evils.
Far away from the glamour of reel life, the real life hero of our story is Lucknow’s present SSP – Rajiv Krishna – who may not agree that all the aforementioned evils are part and parcel of Lucknow’s society but he definitely has the looks and built to give Warsi a run for his money. Talking about ‘Sehar’, Rajiv Krishna agrees that the theme of reel life is based on real life but the events are further dramatized using intuitive genius, something that does not happen in real life.
The ’91-batch IPS officer, who completed graduation from Roorkee University in 1989, got schooling in several schools, courtesy the transferable nature of his father’s job. Even after joining as IPS officer, traveling seems to be inadvertently linked with his profession. Starting with ASP-Bareilly, Rajiv Krishna has worked as ASP-Kanpur, SP City-Aligarh, SP-Intelligence (Kanpur), SP-Firozabad, SSP-Etawah, SSP-Mathura, SSP-Fatehgarh, SP-GRP (Agra), SP-Human Rights (Lucknow) and was posted in Moradabad before coming back to Lucknow. All this is courtesy the policy of frequent transfers that the present-day governments put into practice, for reasons best known to them. Rajiv Krishna though justifies this policy of frequent transfers and says that a person who stays for long period is likely to develop vested interests. However, he agrees that too short stints mean that the officer is unable to know the area fully or build an effective, result-oriented team.
Rajiv Krishna rues the fact that there is little personal life and agrees that his is a high pressure job; as everybody right till the level of destitute and poor expect you to deliver. This is the reason why, upon coming to Lucknow, the first thing that he focused on was the common man. The visible law and order is the petty crime, something that common man has to encounter every day. These crimes are of such a nature that at times it is not even possible to register a case. People, however, feel that law and order is bad. “I stressed the need to curb these crimes and have been successful to an extent,” says Rajiv Krishna. Another area that is of prime concern to him is the strengthening of the communication network so that what you want and desire percolates down to the lowest level. In this regard, he has already taken 4 meetings at various levels, during the one-month stay in Lucknow.
Another list of 3000 criminals is being prepared, their verification being done and the officers are verifying whether they are still involved in crimes or not.
Krishna is of the opinion that law and order in Lucknow is fairly good and it is when people wrongly start relating daily problems that are not linked with the police department, like cleanliness, non-availability of electricity and water, sewage problems and encroachment, they conclude that law and order is bad.
As regards to Nithari killings, Rajiv Krishna is of view that legally no FIRs could have been registered in cases of ‘missing children’. It is only when a person points an accusing finger at somebody that FIRs can be registered. But he agrees that the very fact that about 30-35 children got missing from a locality in a short span of time should have raised the antennas, at least at SO level and they should have reported the case to their seniors. ‘Missing children’ is not a crime but the frequent nature of these incidents should have made them suspicious of criminal intent. The Government has wisely made each of these cases a special report case and now the matter will come in front of senior officers, as soon as some child gets missing.
Undoubtedly, Rajiv Krishna is sitting on a chair that has enormous clout and responsibilities. Expectations too are high and from all quarters. Naturally, under such circumstances, the job pressure could lead to stress. “Proper time management is necessary,” says he and smilingly passes on his mantra of facing the stressful life. “Don’t get stressed!” A mere utterance to some, commentaries running into pages can be written on this statement by those who are aware.
Of course, Rajiv Krishna has a two-and-a-half year old kid at home who surely is a good de-stressing agent, an area of his life that he doesn’t talk much about, while on duty.

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