On the fateful id day, Abhishek, 26 was sitting in his X-ray clinic at Bettiah when, at around 4 p.m., a jeep stopped outside and two passengers got out asking for Bittu, the name by which Abhishek is known in the neighbourhood. The moment Abhishek revealed his identity, the visitors grabbed him, bundled him into the waiting vehicle and sped away.
News of the abduction spread like wildfire in the small town. The police swung into action and gave chase to the abductors. After a 15-minute hot pursuit, the police officer-in-charge saw the abductors' jeep entering the Gopalpur police station, 10 km from Bettiah. Before the officer could unravel the mystery, a message crackled over the wireless informing him that the abduction had been stage-managed by Rakesh Kumar Mishra, superintendent of police of West Champaran, to test the preparedness of his force.
Abhishek's family and the town's folk are outraged. If it was indeed a mock exercise why wasn't the victim taken into confidence, asked A.M. Shukla, Abhishek's uncle. "The SP has not been given the power to hijack the peace of a respectable family," said Dr U.S. Pathak, who knows the family.
Abhishek claims to have been tortured by his abductor. "The beat me up mercilessly, tied my hands with a rope and blindfolded me when I cried out near a railway crossing where the jeep had stopped," he recalled. He was taken to the Gopalpur station and dumped into a dank room. "The officer-in-charge walked in wearing a kurta and pyjama and said that the police would send me to heaven," said the young man whose psychological bruises are still raw. "MY request for a glass of water was turned down."
He was released around 8 p.m. and produced before the SP who had come to the station. "With a smile the SP thanked me for my cooperation that I had never extended," said Abhishek. He was dropped off at his uncles' residence.
According to Girish Kumar Das, a partner in the clinic, Abhishek is so rattled by the experience that he has stopped moving out of his house. "He rarely comes to the clinic whereas earlier he used to be here from morning till evening." Abhishek now spends much of his time with his three brothers at their native village Bagaha, 70 km from Bettiah, or with his parents in Patna. " The police have snatched his smile forever," rues Dr Pathak.
The incident has stunned Abhishek's ailing parents; his mother is yet to recover from the shock. Moans his father Shambhu Nath Tiwari, "I am still unable to speak properly because my heart is broken . I am surviving on medicines."
Abhishek's family and friends find it hard to believe that the abduction was a mere mock exercise. Said Shambu Nath : "It is no secret that the police are hand-in-glove with the criminals in the district. Bittu's clinic is doing brisk business. Naturally the other clinic owners are jealous of his success." Added a tea-shop owner in the town, "There is a rumour that the police got a fat sum to torture Bittu."
Incidentally, Abhishek's grandfather too had fone to jail. But Kamal Nath Tiwari, a freedom fighter and subsequently an MP, could have been proud of his sacrifices for the nation-he was sent to the Cellular Jail in the Andamans. "I thing the SP knows about our family background and the moment he learnt of the kidnapping of my son he converted it into a mock exercise to save the skin of the policemen," said Shambu Nath.
He asked SP Mishra for an apology letter. " He refused and instead said he would send a letter of thanks for my son's cooperation," said the distraught father. The enraged family has despatched letters to the President, Prime Minister and chief minister of Bihar, demanding action against the police for the outrageous act.
SP Mishra believes that the family is over-reacting. He had engineered the mock exercise, he says, to test the alertness of the police and the gauge the reaction of the people to crime. "I realised that the police are not up to the mark in controlling crime and the people lack the ability to resist criminals.
Why wasn't the victim informed about the plan? Mishra claimed that he had informed the Dig of the plan. "Such exercises are conducted off and on by Delhi Police," said he. "The people of my district have appreciated my move." He pooh-poohed the allegation that Abhishek was tortured and refused to believe that the young man's parents were taken ill after hearing of the incident.
Mishra is convinced that the whole exercise was well worth it. he told THE WEEK: "The crime rate has come down after the exercise." But the question which the people of Bettiah are asking is : why do the innocent have to face a thrashing if the police want to bust the baddies?