The Brave Pedestrian

The Logical Indian  added  2 new photos . May be we have been taught a lie all along. May be honesty is not the best policy after all. Look at what happened to constable Ravinder Patil just because he  was honest. The night Salman Khan ran over the people on that pavement, it was Patil who filed the initial complaint. While every other witness turned hostile under pressure or threats, it was Patil who continued to hold his ground, just because truth was on his side. But what did Patil gain out of it except more pressure from Salman Khan's lawyers and even alleged harassment from within the police force. During the course of the trial, Patil had to go into hiding as he feared for his own safety. In 2006 he was arrested for failing to appear as a witness and in the same year he was sacked from the police force - all because he was an honest man who stood for the truth. He was found on the streets of Mumbai in 2007 with advanced TB because his famil...

Blindly obeying any policeman takes us one step closer towards a "Police State", and one step farther from a healthy democracy. Therefore, our FUNDAMENTAL DUTY ("to develop a scientific temper, humanism, and spirit of enquiry and reform") requires us to overcome our blind fear of the uniform and fear of authority, and understand the limits of a policeman's powers. We need to understand what the law requires us to do, or not to do. It is true that the law requires us to cooperate with a policeman in the performance of his duty. However, the law also requires us to UNDERSTAND THE LAW itself, and what it empowers the policeman to do. If the policeman is acting in excess of his statutory powers, the law requires us to resist. A citizen's blind compliance with authority enables to State to encroach on the rights and privileges of all citizens. Regardless of his rank, if a cop phones us and asks us to meet him at the police station, there is ABSOLUTELY NO ...