Twenty-four-year-old Charles* (name changed), a resident of Hyderabad was leaving to work on October 29, at around 5 am. On his way to the bus stop in Chintal, two policemen approached him and coerced him to scan his fingerprints on their device. The 24-year-old who was intimidated by the police’s action, questioned them why they were taking his fingerprints. The police responded saying it was an exercise aimed at verifying if he had criminal cases against him.
According to Charles, many such commuters were randomly stopped by the policemen and asked to submit their fingerprints. Speaking to TNM, Balanagar, Assistant Commissioner of Police A Gangaram, said that the questionable exercise was aimed at preventing offences. The ACP said that they have been carrying out the exercise to identify offenders and prevent potential crimes. “We regularly collect fingerprints of offenders which get stored in our database. During the drive, we collect the fingerprints of the thumb and the index finger, if these match with the fingerprints from the database, we get details of their past crimes. If they are property offenders roaming around in places where they are not supposed to be, we will take them for questioning,” the ACP said. He clarified that they were not collecting biometrics of citizens but using a portable device – Populan – which would match fingerprints with their existing database.
Many have complained about this police action in Telangana and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, too. While the police say that the measures adopted by them were valid, activists working for privacy laws called it an extreme and illegal measure.
Condemning the exercise being carried out by the Telangana police, Hyderabad-based activist SQ Masood said, “The measure of treating everyone as suspects, essentially means that we are under a police state. We do not know if they are collecting fingerprints to store it in their database or matching them with the existing criminal records. But even if they come across people with a criminal past or history, they cannot harass them in the name of questioning until they have violated any law.”
Masood criticised the police for curtailing the liberty of the people. “If a court has given a bail to someone, how can police randomly find fault with them for going somewhere? It is their right to roam freely. They do enjoy the right to liberty. It is completely illegal to curtail someone’s liberty based on their criminal background.”
Lawyer and president of Telangana Human Rights Forum (an organisation working for civil rights) Gorrepati Madhava Rao said, “The exercise is completely illegal. The police can behave with someone in such a manner only on three occasions: they should have an FIR against them; they should be booked under Preventive Detention Act or convicted in the court. The police cannot randomly frisk people and scan fingerprints.”
The actions of the Telangana police in the name of “friendly policing” have repeatedly come under scrutiny. The police have normalised the controversial cordon and search operation – where police cordon off an area and conduct searches in the houses of the people and also collect their Aadhaar details. Under this operation, the police primarily target localities inhabited by the working class, inviting the accusation of “anti-poor” policing.
Cordon and search operation has been a controversial military exercise which was initially used by the Indian security forces in the early 1990s in the Kashmir Valley, which has been termed a human rights violation by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. These searches have now been replicated in other Indian states too. During these searches, the police supposedly search for banned narcotic substances, vehicles without relevant documents, etc.
A group of activists including Masood in the past have questioned the validity of this. Cordon and search were conducted under section 94 of Code of Criminal Procedure, which authorised police to search a place suspected to contain stolen property, forged documents, etc. According to the section, “If a district magistrate, sub-divisional magistrate or magistrate of the first class, upon information and after such inquiry as he thinks necessary, has reason to believe that any place is used for the deposit or sale of stolen property, or for the deposit, sale or production of any objectionable article to which this section applies, or that any such objectionable article is deposited in any place, he may by warrant authorise any police officer above the rank of a constable.”
However, activists said, there was no legal provision which empowered police to conduct blanket searches. The extensive surveillance conducted by the Telangana police has earned the capital city of Hyderabad, the dubious distinction of being the 12th most surveilled city in the world on the basis of CCTV cameras installed.
Read TNM’s series on policing and excesses in Hyderabad here.