AMITABH SRIVASTAVA, Senior Journalist
While Indian Police is notorious for it’s fake encounters and Encounter Specialists are even idolised as heroes, one of the most famous police officers in the country who cracked cases like Rajiv Gandhi assassination,1984 riots, transistor bombs, Charles Sobhraj escape, Jessica Lal murder, Romesh Sharma case says he never needed Third Degree methods to get confessions.
As his second book ‘Khaki on Broken Wings’ Second Part of his Police Diaries hits the stands this week former DGP Arunachal Pradesh, DCP Delhi Police and Deputy Director CBI Amod K Kanth tells us that he knew how to get the truth out from criminals without using Third Degree.
In an exclusive talk with this writer Kanth reveals some of his methodology in getting the truth.
In Khaki on Broken Wings for instance deals with notorious international criminal Charges Sobhraj.
Kanth says,”I knew Sobhraj had a huge ego because of the media build up which always pampered him. I decided to break down that ego to shock him and for that i ensured that for for months that i interrogated him I never offered him a chair to sit. He was made to sit on the ground and that made him speak like a canary.”
On the other hand another associate in his escape plot was Britain’s David Hall who was a photographer and an artiste.
Hall was on a hunger strike in Tihar for some issues.
“I have always carried lunch prepared by my wife Rekha to work. That day I invited David Hall to my room while having lunch and offered him a chair to sit.Then very casually I asked him if he would like to share the food prepared by my wife.that broke down his defences and he cried copious tears because he was reminded of his wife.After that it was easy to win him over”,he adds triumphantly.
His first book Khaki in Duststorm released two years back dealt with 1984 riots and transistor bombs etc while Kanth was DCP Central District.
Within days of the transistor bombs that killed more than a 100 people as a revenge for the killings of Sikhs the police had zeroed in on a terrorist in Patel Nagar who was the master mind of the case.
But try as he might the indoctrinated man refused to confess.
“In my frequent visits to his house in East Patel Nagar i had met his mother who was a very religious person. I knew the key to his heart and started talking to her and appreciating her religious fervour. Finally his mother helped in my task and she forced him to confess his role which she said was a Sin”.
Kanth is very unhappy with the short cut to glory taken by some police officers by using fake encounters and feels it is a bad spot on the name of policing.
But all confessions are not as easy.
In the Jessica Lal case for instance despite all the evidence he had meticulously collected when he was posted to Arunachal Pradesh midway he came to know to his dismay that the high profile culprits Many Sharma and Vikas Yadav were about to be released as the Delhi Police bosses botched up the forensic report.
Much against the advise of his family and well-wishers Kanth rushed back to Delhi and asked the then Police Commissioner to Ajay Sharma to reopen the case. With the same evidence he managed to put the culprits behind bars.
Since last 34 years Amod Kanth is using his positive energy to improve the lives of mariganalised and deprived children, men and women through his NGO Prayas Juvenile Aid Society.
