CHENNAI: Caution! That’s both the advice and the approach of experts and academia to the move of the city police to collect data on students from other states in universities and tenants across the city. While they said such data could be necessary under some circumstances, care must be taken to ensure that the move does not end up in targeting people from any particular community or region.“Sometimes pressure builds up. During such times, law enforcement agencies need to have basic data. It would serve no one if they have to grope around in the dark at these times,” says CV Narasimhan, a retired DGP of Tamil Nadu and an IPS officer of Independent India’s first batch.He cites the example of the rise of the Shiv Sena in the Bombay of the 1960s, to underscore his point on the need for basic information. He adds that such basic data on students also needs to be made readily available to the police as and when required. “Students by their behaviour alone do not warrant any different treatment. If our kids go to other states and misbehave the police force there might take similar action,” Narasimhan adds.Another State police boss, on the other hand, says while data on tenants could work in the favour of landlords as well, information on students need not be collected. “I don’t know why we need to collect information on students,” says Walter Devaram, among Tamil Nadu’s most celebrated as well as controversial police officers.”Data can be collected on suspects, but genuine students need to be left out of this. Even with the large number of migrant labourers, 99 per cent are honest. There may be some criminals, and we need to keep a tab,” Devaram adds.Stating that the collection of details about tenants was a good trend, Devaram insists that these measures cannot be seen as an invasion of privacy. Police officers apart, the threat of targeting does loom large for Prof SL Rao, Chairman of the Institute of Social and Economic Change in Bangalore. While he acknowledges that legal provisions do make way for the collection of data for reasons of security, such information-gathering could either be the result of or lead to lazy police work, he says.“Police must do good detective work. They must catch the right persons. Instead they have asked for this sort of wide ranging data. To me, this sounds a bit misguided,” says Rao. “What makes me afraid is the possibility of targeting. Let them collect information on students, let them get numbers. The moment they start asking for names, there is a very real danger of targeting people from a particular region or community. I fear this is what they will do,” he adds.Prof Rao also cautions the State police to keep in mind that targeting of people from any state could lead to inter-state conflict.
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