Sudarshan Mantri - 6 August, 2013 | Bangalore | law and order | Police | Reforms | Analysis | police reforms

As you may have read in the newspapers recently, Mark Rego, a well known corporate trainer and Emcee, was assaulted near his residence about a week back, by a dozen of unidentified goons.

The encounter started past midnight, when Mark was walking his pet dogs near his residence and noticed a bunch of men urinating on the compound wall of one of the houses nearby and also creating nuisance in publicly. Instinctively, Mark’s dogs started braking on seeing such a big crowd so late in the night. Perhaps out of panic or arrogance, some of them pelted stones at the dogs, to which, Mark obviously took objection. This is when all hell broke loose. Though a Bangalorean, having spent a lot of time away from his hometown, he is not too fluent in Kannada and hence he talked back to the goons in English. Irked at this, the men started assaulting him mercilessly. 

On noticing a night patrol vehicle, Mark raised an alarm and the cops rushed to the spot. On seeing them, the assailants fled in their cars and at the behest of Mark, they were chased and minutes later stopped. However, seeing Mark, only enraged the assailants and restarted assaulting him and threatened the police personnel by claiming that they were associated with some politician from Rajajinagar.

At this moment, a person by the name of Sandeep Kumar, an acquaintance of Mark, who happened to be passing by, on recognizing him, stopped his car and attempted to help him. Sandeep too was roughed up by the assailants. Seemingly, the police personnel, succumbed to the intimidation, stood mute spectators to the ruckus and watched the group flee in their cars.

In the meanwhile, Mr Rego’s wife was talking to some night beat constables opposite to their residence, and was narrating the incident. Apparently, these personnel were mean and nasty to nasty to her when she objected their inaction.

Left badly shaken and in pain, Mark returned to home and called Emergency Police Helpline 100, to report the incident. The next day, at the behest of Mark, Cubbon Park Police Station has accepted his written complaint and acknowledged the receipt which states that the offence in question is non cognizable. 

On 30th July 2013, when Mark followed up with the jurisdictional police on this complaint, he was told that 4 individuals have been arrested and produced before the court wherein they were asked to pay a paltry fine of Rs 200 and hence enlarged. Shockingly, Mark was not called to the station to identify these 4 people. 

Much to the dismay and disbelief of Mark, a couple of days later, he received a phone call from Sandeep stating that Cubbon Park PS has summoned him for the purpose of recording his statement as the prime accused. It was only after Mark gave it in writing to the authorities that Sandeep is rather an eye witness to the incident, that he was let go.

In light of the glaring irregularities in the investigation, KPCC Professionals Cell has taken up this case strongly with the police dept. A petition seeking answers to procedural lapses has been sent to the jurisdictional DCP. We also arranged for a series of TV interviews of Mark, during which, the irregularities in the police investigation has been brought out. A lot of messages are being posted on our Facebook page on this issue.

This is indeed a very unfortunate incident and has shown the city in bad light. The prime objective of Professionals Cell is to protect the interest of the professionals’ fraternity across the state and one can be rest assured that we will not give up until justice is delivered. Kindly strengthen this effort by voicing your support on our F/B page.  

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