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Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Fight for your rights! - Update 3

On 6th Feb, my wife and I went to the nearest Police Station to file the FIR. Amazingly, the police were very helpful. They read through the complaint, inquired into the facts of the case, and said that they would lodge the FIR. They said that we would have to go to court and we assured them that we would. I think seeing the resolve on our faces they did not try to deter us from filing the FIR. So, note this, it pays to be knowledgeable about the laws. I had read through a lot of material the night before and knew exactly which IPC we wanted to charge this guy under, all that came out clearly in the written complaint which we submitted. In fact, the police thought that it had been prepared by a lawyer.

Unfortunately this was the day on which there was quite a bit of trouble in the city as a backlash against Tamil Nadu and the police were really busy with all this. Even in the midst of all this trouble they took a lot of time and effort with us. Very very laudable. It took us quite some time to get the FIR done, mainly because it had to be written in Kannada, and neither my wife nor me know a bit of Kannada. So the police did all the paper work, translated it, read it back to us. In the FIR, the police had registered *more* IPC sections that the Section 509 that we had originally asked for. Very smart and proactive.

After the first copy of the FIR was done, we need to get multiple copies made, one to go to the PC's office, one for the Assistant PC's office, one to be filed, one to be given to me, one for the court. A copy of the FIR is supposed to be given to the person free of cost. However, the policemen apologetically explained that there was no photocopier available at the station, and hence if we really wanted it free of cost they would get the copies and pay from their own pocket. This seemed to be really strange. Is the state of affairs so horrible that they cant get such an official bill reimbursed? Maybe they can't. It was a trivial thing, anyway. So we ourselves went and made 5 copies of the set of documents.

The police said they would come for their "spot report" the next day morning.

Read Fight for your rights! - Update 2.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Even in the midst of all this trouble they took a lot of time and effort with us. Very very laudable. It took us quite some time to get the FIR done, mainly because it had to be written in Kannada, and neither my wife nor me know a bit of Kannada. So the police did all the paper work, translated it, read it back to us. In the FIR, the police had registered *more* IPC sections that the Section 509 that we had originally asked for. Very smart and proactive.

this illustrates why outsiders never bother to learn Kannada. The authorities crawl to make them confortable and the thankless immigrants pay back by shunning Kannada forever.

Unknown said...

@anon: Just like Shilpa Shetty in Big Brother, eh?

Unknown said...

@anon: And you of course would have no idea what "immigrant" means. I wonder if you have a Karnataka passport. I have an Indian one.