Centre-State Relations-Royalty Disputes

THE suspension of two sub-inspectors of police attached to Aliganj police station in Etah district on, charges of 'negligence of duty", following the killing of nine policemen by a group of dacoits on August 7, is not the first instance of possible police complicity in organised crime and, in the context of Uttar Pradesh and neighbouring states, of polce-dacoit links' Within days of the massacre at Behamai in February last, the UP inspector general of police was himself replaced. But what is curious in the present 'disciplinary action' is its extraordinary mildness. For. all reports suggest that while the policemen were supposed to be attacking the docoits, the fact that they were running out of ammunition was revealed to the dacoits by some persons in the raidng party sent to gather reinforcements. The hunters soon became the hunted with the result that at the end of the encounter, nine policemen (an inspector, a sub-inspector, three head constables and four members of the PAC), along with three civilians were killed.