Supreme Court censures Madhya Pradesh cops for protecting goons instead of victims

The Supreme Court on Friday took exception to the Madhya Pradesh Police not providing police protection to a family facing threats from a murder accused who is the husband of a sitting legislator [Somesh Chaurasia v. State of Madhya Pradesh and anr]..A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and KV Viswanathan orally observed that the State Police was working only to political diktats, and providing security to goons rather than victims.The Superintendent of Police (SP) of Damoh District and State Director General of Police (DGP) were directed to be personally present in court on the next date of hearing..The Court was hearing a plea seeking contempt of court proceedings against the officials for not providing police protection to the petitioner's family despite judicial orders.The petitioner's family faced threats from the husband of a sitting Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) who is implicated in the death of his father in 2019."Initially Respondent given the security to the petitioner and his family, but suddenly, they withdrawn it without given any reason ... petitioner and his family are living in fear. Local MLA namely Smt.Rambai who call "Dabang" (Muscleman) in the locality and who given threat to the district collector and openly challenged the State, thereafter State Govt. transfer the collector due to the pressure of this Local MLA [sic]," the plea stated..The plea pointed out that the accused in question was only arrested after the top court's intervention, after which an order to keep the family of the deceased safe was also passed, to no avail."Respondent provided the Security to the main accused, ignoring this facts that he was habitual criminal, and there are many cases are pending against him, not only this three life imprisonment was awarded by the Session Court to the main accused in different cases [sic]"..Advocate Varun Thakur appeared for the petitioner.