When you are a news reporter, working on the basis of information provided by the police is part and parcel of your job

Discrimination is all pervasive

When you are a news reporter, working on the basis of information provided by the police is part and parcel ofu00a0 your job. But sometimes it becomes very difficult to deal with the police as they don't give you proper information and try to mislead you. It has happened several times to me. Often, after visiting a crime site, I have gone to the police station in the area only to be denied any information about the incident. They try to hide things from the media and don't want certain information to be made public.

Once, a person had committed suicide by hanging himself in a locality and the police had come to the spot for investigation. They were trying to bring the body down which was still hanging from the roof. The policeu00a0 confirmed on the crime scene that the person had committed suicide a couple of days ago and the neighbours had complained of a stink emerging from the house nextdoor.

But surprisingly when I called the concerned jurisdiction police station to get more details and a police quote, the officers on duty denied everything saying that there was no such incident reported in the station. So was the crime scene that I hadu00a0 witnessed just a few hours ago a dream?

When I was on the night shift recently, the police had arrested a quack who was selling medicine for ailments.

When I visited the concerned station at midnight, the officers were packingu00a0 material seized from the quack.

When I inquired the concerned officer about the belongings, he said that the stuff they were handling was
nothing but old rubbish, which they were packing and dumping.

Sometimes, when you go to police stations for information, they deny leaking the news in the first place but your surname and the region you belong to at times works in your favour.

In another incident, I had gone to a police station and as usual, they refused to give me information. Even after a long chat with the officer yielded nothing. While leaving the station, another officer asked me my
surname. Afterwards, I was immediately asked to sit down. He gave me the required information off the record.
Like the rest of India, police stations also work on the clan mentality. Who you are and where you are from can work in your favour or against you even at police stations.

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