Oken Jeet Sandham
Before the shame that has brought by our arrogant PSO attached to state’s power minister settling down, another shame surfaced. This time is by the security personnel attached to another state minister holding health and family welfare.
Look the way state power minister’s PSO could slap a Railways official manning the Railways crossing junction at Kamarbandha Railway Station, some 20 kilometers away from Golaghat, Assam in broad day light while the latter declined to open the crossing gate purportedly as another passenger train would be crossing the junction in a short while. Because of this irresponsible act of the security officer, the minister had to take refuge in the Golaghat Police Station from the outrage of about 500 crowds. One wonders what would be the consequences had the police personnel from the nearby Golaghat Police Station not arrived in the scene.
But the incident that took place in Dimapur the other day is rather more shameful in a way the personnel attached to the health and family welfare minister, of course without the minister, acted upon. The personnel reportedly came in a fit of anger to the M/S Sunny Store inside the shop located at Bata Charali, deluxe Point, in Dimapur with a claim that the minister’s wife was refused a discount a couple of days back. It said the personnel beat the owner of the shop at the instigation of a civilian who was reported to have claimed that he and the minister’s wife were insulted by the owner when they demanded for discount of the shoes.
Both the incidents showed that the PSO and the security personnel acted on their own. Yet the incidents have brought disgrace not just the ministers but also the people of the state. In the past, former leader of opposition I Imkong, MLA, who was minister in the erstwhile SC Jamir ministry, had to bear the brunt of his security personnel’s excesses. At last he had to resign from the Jamir ministry.
It is a common notion that those security personnel in uniform attaching or not attaching to the VIPs should show maximum restraint if not the situation demands for exercising their actions. The PSO who slapped the railways official in Golaghat perhaps must have thought he could do the same as done in Kohima, Dimapur and other towns in Nagaland where they are least bothered of any traffic congestions.
The other day, the world witnessed how one Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi, a reporter with Al-Baghdadia channel which broadcast from Cairo, threw a pair of shoes on the American President George W Bush while he was addressing a farewell press conference at Bagdad. The president immediately ducked down and avoided both the flying shoes. The president however takes it in rather humorous way saying that he faced such freaks but the current one as most the freakish. “This is a sign of free democratic society,” he said sending the rambling media persons into heavy laughter. The president had shown his maturity, although the journo was instantly arrested by the Iraqi police. Had the similar incident happened in our place, we would have got not less than a heavy boot.
