Tasavur Mushtaq
Srinagar
In an embarrassing situation, a probationer DySP of Jammu & Kashmir police Sunday threatened Vice-Chancellor of Kashmir University Dr Khurshid Iqbal Andrabi on Jammu-Srinagar highway.
According to reports, a naka party in district Udhampur led by DySP Aadil stopped the vehicle of Vice-Chancellor who was on his way to Srinagar. The Vice-Chancellor was asked to come down and while checking papers, the officer peeled off the tinted film from the window panes.
When asked the reason, the said official replied, “I am doing my duty”. He further threatened the VC of ‘detaining his car’. The VC according to reports had told the officer that “if I would have carried escorts along, you would not have dared to do this.”
Getting angry over the comment, the police officer told him that “I would have done same thing to anybody” while repeating that “this is car of vice-Chancellor.”
Confirming the incident, Dr. Khurshid Iqbal while talking to Kashmir Life over phone said that “I am hurt”. He further said that this has not happened for the first time. “I have been living a life of civilian and this has happened many times.” “No regrets, no complaints.”
The Vice-Chancellor while saying that this is ‘routine’ raised a question that “in what capacity a police officer would have detained me when I had not done anything criminal.
When asked whether he reported it to higher police officials, he replied in negative. “I want it to over. From the point of being a civilian, the officer was still well behaved.”
“If the checking was a routine affair, why all the media was there. May be the officer wanted to score some brownie pints,” Dr Iqbal pointed out.
Pertinently allotted with escort of over dozen policemen, the Vice-Chancellor is a protected person in state of Jammu & Kashmir. But from the first day in his office, he had not carried them along and is putting up in his own house rather than allotted accommodation in posh Nigeen area.
Regarding the use of ‘tinted’ glass on vehicles, there is Supreme Court direction in writ petition(civil) no. 265 of 2011, Avishek Goenka Vs union of India where the judgment pronounced by justice Swatanter kumar says that “no black film or any other material can be pasted on the windscreen and side glasses of a vehicle.”
However regarding the security reason of certain VIPs/VVIPs, the judgment says that “a committee consisting of Director General of Police and the Home Secretary of that state/centre can examine cases of persons depending upon the category of security that such person has been awarded by the competent authority.”
