“Most of my men prefer to stay in the barracks rather than go back home and risk their families. I am staying here too”

Every morning when Inspector Arvind Sharma, Station House Officer (SHO) of Defence Colony in Delhi, wakes up, he composes a long message for his 80-member team. Included in the text are words of encouragement but, more importantly, behaviour guidelines as his staff head out to the city on yet another day in the unfolding battle against the pandemic. ‘Be polite but firm’, ‘no durvyavahaar [bad behaviour]’, ‘maintain social distance from people as well as amongst each other’ are some of the messages Sharma reads out to us from his phone, swiping up and down, sitting in his office, on Lala Lajpat Rai Road. With Lajpat Nagar on one side and AIIMS on the other, this stretch in south Delhi is usually one of the busiest but now there is only sweeping barrenness as far as the eye can see, enveloped by an eerie silence. The only sign of activity are on the police barricades installed every few hundred metres, manned by four personnel each of Delhi Police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). There are circles drawn on the ground to ensure social distancing even amongst the team. “I have been in the force for 24 years now and this situation is unprecedented,” says Sharma who began preparing his men mentally for what was coming a few days before the lockdown was announced. Sharma considers himself and his staff the first line of defence in the battle the country is waging against Covid-19, be it ensuring the lockdown is followed, senior citizens are looked after or migrant labourers are fed properly.

At the Defence Colony thana, the force is working across three shifts: 7 AM-3 PM, 3 -11 PM and 11 PM- 7 AM. “It is duty time for us round the clock. Most of my men prefer to stay in the barracks rather than go back home and risk their families. I am staying here too,” he says. As if on cue, an attendant walks in with freshly ironed shirts. There are stacks of sanitisers lying in one corner of the SHO’s office, even as you are asked to sanitise your hands before entering the police station. The interview with Sharma took place with masks on even as he reprimanded a colleague for accepting papers from someone with bare hands. “The one insight I have got into human nature with this lockdown is that people are desperate to go out. Maybe it is a Delhi thing or maybe it is reverse psychology. But every day, the bulk of our work at the checkpoint is sifting the ones who are out for a joyride from the ones who are genuine essential service providers,” he says as he joins his team at 6.30 PM on a weekday evening, expecting the traffic to go up. “This is the time [essential services] workers are headed back home, so there is a spike in the number of vehicles. One CRPF man slows them down and directs them, one of my men approaches the vehicle and verifies the papers.” Every day brings with it a new tale of how someone once again tried to outsmart the cops. “We had a couple with the wife lying in the backseat groaning terribly. We would have investigated more but since it was a woman and her husband was very insistent we let them go. What they did not realise was that there was another checkpost only a few hundred metres away and our travelling patrol was moving along with them by sheer coincidence. The minute they were out of our sight, the car stopped, the lady got out and sat in the front seat and the man started the car again. And then our patrol knocked on the window,” Kumar shares the story with great relish even as his men, who are on picket duty, chuckle from their socially distanced points.

The Delhi Police officers across the city Open spoke to confirm that at least some residents seem to suffer from restlessness. “This is one of our biggest challenges: to convey to people that they have to stay inside. Nobody is saying a lockdown is easy but if there was any other option, wouldn’t that have been exercised? Our men have orders to explain to people in as polite but firm a manner as possible,” says Vijayanta Arya, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Northwest). Delhi Police is reluctant to give out an exact number for men deployed but seniors say it is very much an all-hands-on-deck situation. “It is not just the men you see on duty at the pickets or guarding hotspots or patrolling areas which have people under quarantine. There are people manning helplines, there are teams involved in relief work for stranded migrants, all of this while the top leadership is constantly monitoring the situation and doing its work through video conferencing, wireless technology, etcetera,” says a senior official on condition of anonymity.

Sharma and his men are equipped with masks, gloves and glasses though there is also the occasional need for PPE. There is one quarantined household under his area which includes the neighbourhoods of Anand Lok, Andrews Ganj and Sadik Nagar but he says PPE are also needed when people call incessantly to report a neighbour who may be coughing a bit too much or showing signs of incapacitation. At least three Delhi Police personnel have tested positive for Covid-19 and more are under self-quarantine after an assistant sub-inspector deployed at AIIMS tested positive.

One of the bigger challenges for Sharma and his men on the ground is verifying the authenticity of e-passes most drivers show. “Also, many family members serve as drivers for parents or spouses who are medical staff. Now, as long as the member is with them, we let them through, but how do we authenticate when they are by themselves? We ask for the family member to send across their medical ID on WhatsApp but it would help if we could have passes that also identify the routes they will take and in case they are found on some other route, then action can be taken.” For Sharma, it is the most difficult to deal with Good Samaritans who are out to help people but don’t have the correct authorisation. Even as he is bringing up this point, an Alto drives up laden with biscuits and milk powder packets in cartons. The two men driving it don’t have an e-pass but they have stuck a colourful Langar Sewa banner on the windshield. Sharma has a conversation with them while one of his colleagues sends back a couple who are going grocery-shopping. The man tries to reverse on a one-way street even as there are other cars behind him and Sharma has to threaten him with a chalaan. “I told the couple that only one person can go grocery-shopping, both husband and wife are not needed. He said the wife only wants a certain kind of biscuit from a certain bakery, so she needs to be there,” the junior informs him. “It is challenging,” he says, requesting he not be named. He takes a break from time-to-time and looks at “something completely unrelated to Covid” on the mobile phone. As the mercury rises across north India, eight-hour picket duties are not easy, either on the feet or on temper. There is a water cooler and colleagues come by with food packets but the work is only going to get more busy as more services are given the go-ahead for movement.

“We aren’t just out there manning the streets. A large part of my work these days is also coordinating relief efforts. There are labourers who are stranded in construction sites and we take food to them. Sometimes you also have to sit and listen to them, worried as they are about their families back in the villages. We go to jhuggi clusters to hand out weekly rations,” says Sharma as he takes us to his station’s “ration godown” where neat packets of flour, pulses, oil, salt, sugar have been prepared.

We meet Sharma just a day after a group of policemen were attacked in Patiala and one was grievously injured. “These incidents only worry those who are absolutely new to the force. Today people say thank you to us when they cross us but these are the same people who abuse us, spit at us and try to get us suspended in ordinary times. So, I have no expectations of people as a whole,” says Sharma. He talks about a sub-inspector who faced action because he stopped a car after the lockdown that belonged to someone who was ‘connected’. In Delhi parlance, it is called ‘approach’, and Sharma refers to it liberally when detailing the experiences of his men. “Who knows kiska kya approach hai? Especially in these areas [south Delhi]. So my men are extra-cautious but still vigilant.”

Ever since the lockdown, social media has been flooded with videos and images of policemen and women across states coming up with innovative ways to inform the public about the lockdown. From Covid helmets to skits, bringing a whole new meaning to street theatre, the Indian police force has been innovative in generating awareness. Stories and footage of police brutality, especially towards migrants or stranded labourers continue to do the rounds too. “Yes, there are stories of excess but there are also stories of men and women doing their jobs as well as going beyond the call of duty to help out the citizenry. The police force as a whole has risen to the occasion and their performance is such a fine example of what the force is capable of, even with constrained resources, reduced manpower, when there is no political interference,” says Prakash Singh, former Director General and an advocate of police reforms.

For Sharma and his men, this is just the right example of what they signed up for when they decided to don the khaki uniform.

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