Julio Ribeiro, retired IPS officer, interviewed by Jyoti Punwani (The Hindu)

-The Hindu

He is 91 and still angry. The veteran cop talks of how the police-neta nexus can be broken

Having tackled the underworld in Mumbai and Khalistani terror in Punjab, you’d think retired IPS officer Julio Ribeiro would have seen it all. Yet, the Vikas Dubey ‘encounter’ killing in Uttar Pradesh and the custodial deaths of a father and son in Tamil Nadu so shook the 91-year-old “supercop” that he wrote an open letter to his IPS colleagues, calling India a “police state”. In this interview, he speaks about police reform and accountability and the role politicians play.

* With the custodial deaths in Tamil Nadu and the Vikas Dubey “encounter” in U.P., it seems like all the talk about police reforms has been of no use.

Nothing’s worked because our politicians don’t care. They want to misuse the police for their political ends, and our police officers are equally guilty because they are willing to go along with them for the favours they can get.

The power of making appointments and transfers has to be limited. When I joined, the government could only transfer IPS officers; everyone below that was handled by the Superintendent of Police or the Commissioner. Also, back then, the politicians had taken part in the freedom struggle. They took their job of looking after the interests of the people very seriously. If the police crossed a line, they’d take up cudgels for the victims.

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Image Sourtesy: The Hindu/ R Rajesh