Thannganing Hungyo
Dimapur | August 15
IT’S TIME to say au revoir to Bidhu Shekhar, the versatile Superintendent of Police who has headed the crime-fighting team of khaki-dressed men and women in Dimapur for a period of 2 years. Shekhar departs for New Delhi in about a week’s time to join the Intelligence Bureau on deputation, and will return to Nagaland after four years. In an interview with The Morung Express, he recounts the many experiences he’s faced during his spell in Dimapur.
“I had a successful tenure, a satisfying stint,” he walks down memory lane. The most challenging assignment for him was the series of crude bomb explosions that occurred in and around the city. Police finally ascertained the identity of the perpetrators after studying mobile phone logs.
Among others, the more testing cases Police managed to zero in during Shekhar’s term comprise of white-collar crimes. These include successfully detecting the North East Zone Cultural Centre scam, the Nagaland Horticulture Board subsidy scam involving a large sum of money, the 8-crore Nagaland State Aids Control Society scandal and the arrests of 7-8 Nigerian tricksters, who “were making inroads into Nagaland.” The Nigerian gangsters will have to think twice now, the IPS officer says. Yet another noteworthy task was solving the Vincent murder case within 24 hours, he adds.
In the last two years, more than 50,000 kg of contraband ganja and 8-10 kg of heroin were also seized.
What Shekhar has continuously advocated is that policemen here have to infuse more of technology into investigations. A sore point for him was the ‘Fiery Sunday’ incident at Wungram Colony where several houses were reduced to cinders by an agitated crowd. “It was a kind of harrowing experience.”
The incident was a reminder of the inadequacy of the Police in handling such crowds, Shekhar rues. In Delhi, Police deploy a vehicle called the Vajra (Hindi for shield) which is resistant to stones, contains pressurized water cannons that fire coloured water to members of mobs who can later be identified and arrested, and also multi-barrel tear gas launchers. A recommendation has been sent to the state government for such equipment. Officers in Nagaland are also not “amply trained” to face situations where crowds have to be controlled.
In his treatment to his subordinates, Shekhar says he has always strived to break the hierarchal pattern by treating the force as a family. But as head of the family, he has had to sometimes reprimand erring juniors. He has encouraging words for his immediate subordinates. “SDPOs were quite hard-working. That is how we could achieve so many things.”
