Even as the Nitish Kumar government has been constantly trying to bring reforms in the police department with the objective to improving investigation process, maintaining law and order and preventing human rights violations, the growing culture of “body massage” among the cops inside the police stations has dealt a severe blow to government’s move to transform police image. In the past few months, several incidents of body massage have come to light, amply indicating how the cops are least concerned about the image makeover.
In a fresh incident, a police sub-inspector Sashi Bhushan Sinha has been caught on camera getting a body massage from a woman inside a police station in Saharsa district. Reports said the woman had reached the cop seeking his help for the release of her son from jail but the cop allegedly took him to his bedroom and asked her for a body massage. In the video, the hapless woman can be seen massaging the cop as he sits on a cot inside his residence nearly bare-bodied, wrapping just a towel around his midriff.
As the video went viral in social media, the police department took a serious note of it and placed the cop under suspension. “We have suspended the police inspector and also started departmental proceedings against him. His conduct is totally unacceptable and tarnishes the image of the police department,” local district superintendent of police Lipi Singh told the media, reacting to the incident.
Similar incident was earlier reported from Kaimur district where a cop identified as Jafar Imam was caught on camera getting a body massage while hearing people’s grievances inside a police station in October 2018. Imam dressed in police uniform was seen sitting on a chair inside Chainpur police station and getting a head and back massage while listening to people’s grievances. What was horrible, the police officer was also heard talking to complaints in an unparliamentary manner. He was suspended by the government for his conduct.
In July 2019, as many as 80 girls fled the hostel of a government-run Kasturba Gandhi school in Bhojpur district after being repeatedly forced to massage the hostel warden, a woman, and clean the toilet at her official residence, prompting the authorities to order an investigation. The absconding girls were later caught by the local villagers who handed them over to the police. It was then that the shocking details came to light.
Another such incident came to light in August 2018 after the police arrested the head of an NGO in Patna for allegedly sexually exploiting the NGO secretary. This is not the end of the story, though. The police also arrested a senior government official for allegedly sexually exploiting the girls lodged at a shelter home in Vaishali district. According to complaints by victims, the said officials would routinely reach the shelter home on the pretext of inspection and would sexually abuse them. “He (the official) would straightway enter into our room and ask us to massage his body during which he would molest us,” was how the victim girls alleged.