'Cop with a rose' is mentally stable

Constable Pramod Tawde, who is facing a departmental inquiry for offering a flower to MNS chief Raj Thackeray last Tuesday, has been assessed and certified as mentally fit by medical experts.

MiD DAY had reported on Tawde's controversial gesture of gratitude last week (‘Constable in trouble for giving rose to Raj Thackeray', August 15). According to sources in the Byculla wireless department where he works, an overjoyed Tawde distributed sweets upon learning from a superior on Saturday that he had been given a clean bill of mental health.

The medical examination was conducted as part of court proceedings for a case filed earlier by Tawde, after he was allegedly thrashed by CISF jawans in a scuffle in August 2010. In the wake of his defiant gesture last week, the then commissioner of police, Arup Patnaik had even made a statement to the media claiming that Tawde was medically unfit and was undergoing treatment for the same.

Tawde was subjected to a departmental inquiry for offering the flower to the MNS chief. He had claimed that the gesture was one of gratitude, meant to thank Thackeray for taking up the cudgels on behalf of police constables, who are usually ignored by their superiors.

Sources in the wireless department said that since the act plunged Tawde into controversy, he was alienated in his own force, with his colleagues distancing themselves from him, fearing that they too would be blacklisted. Moreover, he claimed that he was no longer allotted any tasks, and sat idle in his office.

"On Saturday, he brought a box of pedas and started distributing them in the office. When one of his colleagues enquired what the occasion was, he told them that his report had come in and doctors at J J Hospital had confirmed that he is mentally fit," said a police constable who is working with him.

ACP Deshpande of the wireless department received the report from JJ hospital and the news was conveyed to Tawde by his immediate superior.

Confirming the development, Dr T P Lahane, dean of J J Hospital said, "He was brought to us in April and our core committee checked him and then gave him a clean chit." Tawde could not be reached for comment.u00a0