Indore : It was 5.15am on Thursday. The personnel of Vijay Nagar police station were preparing for the night shift to end, when they heard roar of motorcycles piercing through the still air from a distance.
Their curiosity peaked when they heard sounds of turmoil at Vijay Nagar square. But, before they could investigate, masked men armed with hockey sticks and iron rods barged into the station and unleashed their fury. They started beating up personnel.
Minutes later, realisation dawned. The attackers with crew cut hair were army men out to exact revenge.
Earlier during the night, patrolling policemen from the station had an altercation with some army officers in front of BCM Heights. Finding them drunk and agitated, a police team had asked them to clear the area. They group stood firm and an altercation ensued.
CSP Vipul Shrivastava rushed to the spot and the police rounded up some of the officers, brought them to the police station. The issue subsided and the officers left, alleging police atrocity. One of them had sustained a knee injury, allegedly due to police beating.
By morning, the army men had attacked the police station. They reached the Vijay Nagar- after inquiring about the police station from a paper boy – and beat up policemen posted at the square. This was the ruckus the personnel at the police station heard. Before they could react, the attackers were on to them.
The attackers, while beating the policemen with sticks, reached the police station in three groups. They first rendered communication devices useless. Finding that the office of TI was empty, they ransacked it. Same was the fate of the CSP office.
Policemen fled from whichever avenue they could find. A sub-inspector locked himself in a toilet; broke a portion of wall, scaled a seized truck parked in the campus and jumped over the boundary wall, to escape.
Another policeman tried to catch a moving auto-rickshaw. Some army men thwarted the move. He then made away on foot.
“We were stunned as the army men did not speak a word and started thrashing us. We just heard from them how dare we beat up their colleagues,” said Atul, a constable who hid under a table during the entire episode.
A constable was caught by attackers at Vijay Nagar square. He was beaten and paraded till Rasoma Square, where he was released.
The attackers snatched a rifle from a constable, broke computers and electronic equipment. They also damaged the CCTV cameras and removed the hard discs used to record the happenings.
The only person to be left unharmed was inside the lock-up. Mahendra, who was arrested by police on Wednesday for a petty crime, claimed that he woke up hearing the uproar. “Policemen were being beaten up and furniture was being destroyed,” he said.
The attackers broke the locks to the prison area and took it away with them.
The chaos ended as soon as it began. Within in 30 minutes, the army personnel boarded their vehicles and zoomed out as dawn broke.
By afternoon, senior army police officers visited the police station took stock of the situation. Another group of officers met the district police chief and offered all help in investigations.
Police charged unknown persons with various crimes, including making indecent advances at a lady police officer.
Recounting Army, police face-offs
The incident of attack on police and vandalising police station by army men is not the maiden incident as they had attacked on the police for five times earlier as well.
The worst incident of army men’s attack was occurred in MHOW when the soldiers held the whole town captive in 1992 and also made pickets with armed personnel at all the entry points of the town.
However, no serious action has been reported yet in such cases despite various cases being registered and commissions formed to probe into the matters. This time also, cases have been registered and commissions have been formed.
During the incident in 1992, the army men had taken out advance weapons and hostage the town for more than day. The soldiers were marching on every square in MHOW with their rifles and beaten and injured the then TI Surendra Singh severely as he was admitted to the hospital for many days.
The soldiers did not allow the then Superintendent of Police, Deputy Inspector General of Police and Collector to enter the town. Later, senior army officials intervened and defused the situation.
In another incident, attack on Palasia police station was carried out by more than 70 army men after having dispute with the cops at Anand Bazaar.
MIG police station, Tukoganj police station and Rajendra Nagar police station were also vandalised by them after the dispute with the cops. Not only the police station, but the army men had ransacked Sri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Science after college administration misbehaved with a senior army officer, who had come for his daughter’s admission.
Similarly, attack on a hotel-cum-bar in Geeta Bhawan area was also recorded in the history of the dark side of army men.
