 Hello and welcome to New Slick. I'm Paranjai Govathakurtha. Today I'm honored and privileged to have with me all the way from Mumbai, Mr. Julio F. Ribeiro. Well, he really needs no introduction, but nevertheless, I should mention that he was the former commissioner of police of Mumbai. He headed the police force in Punjab, in Gujarat, and he was also India's ambassador to Romania. He's had two assassination attempts on him, and he's only 91 years young. Thank you so much, Mr. Ribeiro, for giving the viewers of New Slick your time. Let me start by asking you, what prompted you to write this letter to the police head, the commissioner of police Delhi, Mr. Essentri Vastava, who's a member of the Indian Police Service, and you have mentioned that the police investigation into the communal riots that took place in northeast Delhi in late February, that this investigation was being done in an absolutely shoddy manner. You said, I write to you with a heavy heart that true patriots are being entangled in criminal cases, and those who are responsible for provocative, communal, hate-filled, incendiary speeches, including leaders of the Bhartey Jantapati, they've been allowed to get away scot-free, and you urged the police force to ensure that there was a fair investigation, and there was no bias and hate against those belonging to a minority community, not a leader. What prompted you, sir, to write this open letter to the commissioner of police Delhi? See, I write every week for the Tribune of Chandigarh, and there one of the readers, he wrote back, I mean he sent me a letter saying that you write every week, but you have never ever mentioned that the Delhi police are sort of becoming the laughing stock by doing things, stop-seating, making black into white, and they mentioned these same things that you have mentioned about the investigation that they have let off the culprits, so I did reply to him, one gentleman called Mr. Malik, I think, and I said that look, I too feel like that because from what I read and what I saw on the television, ever since the JNU and the Islam Milia, Jamia Milia, ever since that, I've got a feeling that they have been one-sided. For example, in the JNU I saw, couldn't men going into the campus, they probably were leftists, and they were prosecuted, but they later on a much bigger, couldn't group, much bigger, they were allowed by the police to come in, that was for revenge, obviously, and they belong to the right-wing group, but nothing was done against them and they were in fact allowed to come in and come out, go out very freely, so I was wondering what is this type of policing, it is our job, and we have been taught that whoever commits an offense has to be charged, has to be taken to task, otherwise the rule of law is never established, and in case the political parties, because many of these culprits have political affiliations, they try to influence you or interfere in the investigation, you must be able to say no, I'm sorry, this is the evidence on record, and in this case it was all seen on the television, so I really wonder how the police can get, can absolve one group and take only the other, I think the other also needs, that was done, but not this main group, yeah, so then I, yes. Please continue, please continue, I have some questions. No, I am part of a group of old IAS and IPS officers, including other central services, including the foreign service also, and these are officers of integrity, and they are persons who do not take these kind of sites, who have been true to their oath that they do not get influenced by politics or by religion and things, they are not supposed to get influenced, you are policemen and you are supposed to establish the troop, and these officers were always also debating this matter, finally they approached me, they said that look, I said yes, I know about it, I've read about it, and they suggested that I, this would be a very good way to tackle this, because the police commissioner must take heed, and they said if you write, it would probably attract his attention, which I did. Mr. Rubey, that is why I wrote, yeah. Okay, you know after you wrote the letter, number of other senior officers of the central services, including senior officers of the Indian police force, the police services have endorsed your views and added to that, let's look at some of the facts, there were Hindu Muslim riots, there were communal riots in northeastern Delhi, and between the 23rd of February and the 26th of February, at least 53 people died, there was one police officer, but out of the remaining 52, 40 were Muslims, now we saw a lot of property, especially property belonging to Muslims were destroyed, subsequently the police have lodged over 750 first information reports, over a hundred charge sheets have been filed, and over 1400 people were arrested or detained, but significantly, Mr. Kapil Mishra, who made a very, very provocative speech standing next to a senior police officer, he was a deputy commissioner of police, his name was Veeth Prakash Suryam, Anurag Thakur, who happens to be a minister of state in the finance ministry, Parvesh Verma, another important BJP leader, they made very, very provocative, eight filled, inflammatory speeches, but the police have chosen to completely ignore their provocative speeches, what does this say sir, so when you talk about police, political interference in the police force, and we know that the Delhi police comes directly under the ministry of home affairs, under the union home minister Mr. Amit Shah, what does this mean? I have written about it, that was part of my letter, which is so blatant that these gentlemen could speak, I have heard it on television myself, these gentlemen talking in the most provocative manner, and I think that if they had any sense of fairness or justice, Delhi police should have first taken up these gentlemen, and said look, and if the political masters had said that look, you can't do this and do that, they said, they will have to show the proof that is on the television, how are you going to explain that, and then you have to take action when people like this actually provoke the riots, it leading up to the riots, it are these statements that have caused the people to get heated up, so I really am surprised that they were let off in this manner. In the letter that was written by a number of senior retired officers who endorsed your letter, they pointed out how a special commissioner of police, they haven't named him but I'm naming him Praveer Ranjan, he in an official letter had said there were Hindus who were resentful of investigation, who were resentful of the way the investigation into the riots went on, now tell me, should a police officer put down these kinds of statements on the record, and the Delhi police justifies it and says this is, I mean there's nothing wrong with what he said, I mean they do look very very clever language, but should a police officer be mentioning, they should be making such statements? I think he was carried away probably by the fact that he had to be on the right side of the people in charge who are masters of his own destiny, I think that is what must have provoked him to do that because it is rather funny that an officer should show his true feathers, anyway so but you know the evidence that is going to be put up in court, you said some charges have already been laid in the courts, so what is the evidence against these people? That has to be seen because once the trial starts, the evidence will all come out whether the same enthusiasm has been shown when prosecuting one group of people has been shown while prosecuting the others, that we would like to see and what is the evidence against those you are going to charge for conspiracy, I mean that is another point that also people are very eager to see because if they have evidence as they say they have then they should show it, they should not prolong the inquiries anymore, why was Umar Khalid for example not arrested much earlier here because if you think he have got evidence against him please prosecute him and show us what evidence you have but to arrest people at that just before the three month time you know there is a timeline fixed for laying the charge sheet and if you just before that if you arrest people then you get another three months that's another unfortunate part of the whole thing so this is the loophole that they exploit in order to keep people in custody without trial that is another thing that I find being commonly used by the police which is absolutely unfair yeah every sir on this issue of the law I'm going to ask you some more questions but do you think in today's day and age we still need a log and sedition which was enacted during the colonial era do we still need a law which many people consider draconian which gives the police huge powers and it's and is to be misused like the UAPA the unlawful activities prevention act do you think it's about time these laws were removed from our statute books as far as sedition law is concerned I think the general consensus is that it should go because it is being most more often than not misused and the balance of convenience if you is to totally abolish this law and you can always have other sections of law if you think that people are provoking others to really go against the state because most of these people have not gone against the state or they have not shown signs that they wanted to be riot or something the people who actually provoke those only should be could have been charged with sedition but nothing of that sort is done and then you know it is selectively used these laws are selectively used and I think it is time they go sir if you look at the people who have been arrested young people young students uh Devangana Kalitha Natasha Narwal both students of Jawaharlal Nehru University part of the Pinchratul movement Gul Fishta Fathima of Jamia Milia Islamia when you look at you mentioned Omar Khaled when you look at the people who have been picked up and put behind bars Safura Zargar she was pregnant when she was put behind bars and they are the ones against whom the police are proceeding and not only that they haven't been charged but they have been they have been questioned they have been named in the various uh uh the documents that are doing the rounds people like Harsh Mandar Professor Apurva Nand filmmakers Rahul Roy Sabha Devan they've been questioned uh economics professor Jayati Ghosh and not only that you you have the lawyers Mahut Pracha who's been representing some of the the people who are uh who have been affected and then you have political leaders like Sitaram Yachuri like Yogendra Yadav I mean is there a a a method in the manner in which individuals young students have been selected and put behind bars and now escalating into academics to political leaders because of their opposition to the present regime and their opposition to laws like the CAA the Citizenship Amendment Act you know in this I see a very clear political hand because uh I don't think I mean with my experience of 36 years of course I'm 30 years behind now and perhaps things that are happening today are much worse than in my time but uh political leaders would would have a hand in trying to uh to decide who should be prosecuted and who should not be in such circumstances so I'm I'm quite sure that uh the police would not normally have arrested uh political leaders and all without consulting their political masters this is almost certain so so in other words uh you are pretty sure that the police will not act against the likes of Kabir Mishra and Anurag Thakur and Parvej Varma no no against them they won't against them they won't you know they've been a large number of other uh important political leaders of the BJP who have been named by some of the victims in their in in their depositions including Satyapal Singh he's a member of parliament but we have Nant Kishore Gujar he's a MLA from Loni Mohan Singh Pish he's an MLA from Delhi Jagdish Pradhan former MLA all of them belong to the BJP and and and various complaints have been made against them you think they want to get away I think they will because it all depends on who is in power the law is not enforced against those who support those in power right that is the unfortunate part of our rule of law rule of law means those who commit crimes should be arranged before a court of law but that doesn't happen in our polity sir we've seen communal riots it used to happen but now things are changed sir we've seen terrible communal riots in this country in Delhi in November 1984 around six thousand Sikhs were selected and they were brutally massacred it was like the genocide of gov wrong uh many many congress leaders were allegedly behind it now in Gujarat in 2002 you you headed the police department in Gujarat you've been in the head of the police department in Gujarat in Gujarat at least 700 Muslims were killed in 2002 what we are seeing I mean although the scale was less I mean so far there've been as we mentioned earlier as I mentioned to you earlier in northeastern Delhi 53 people died between February 23rd and 26th including one policeman of the remaining 52 41 Muslims uh are we going to see the same story getting repeated over and over again whenever we come to these kinds of communal conflicts communal riots in fact I have a apprehension that it might be a little worse now at least the hate levels today in the slums of Mumbai for instance is has increased exponentially and I got a friend of mine young gentleman called Sanjay Nar and he talks to me often from Pune I've known him for many years and he was uh he had set up an NGO to look after the orphans of the people in JNK you know he says that the the level of hate that has now been generated is something that he has never seen before and so do the the people in the Mohalla committee movement in Mumbai they also tell me that it is something that you have never imagined so if this is the way that we are going to go about I mean that all that sub-case art sub-case because sub-case visuals all that is just wool over our eyes and it is going to react and rebound on us very very badly in case there is a god forbid uh hostilities with our powerful neighbor on the east this kind of divisions in our society are not going to help a bit on the contrary it will be exploited by the enemy so I think that there is a very very dangerous kind of movement that is now in order to capture votes I presume and for that we are going to sacrifice the future of our country I'm really I really grieve for my country sir in your letter where you write to the Delhi police commissioner with a heavy heart urging a fair probe into the uh investigation fair investigation you have said these police officers they've they've taken a note they're sworn to uphold the constitution of this country I mean they are supposed to take action on the merits on the merits of individual cases irrespective of the religious faith the political affiliation any affiliation of the people who are suspected or accused but are we today seeing even the communalization of the police force and I give you one example and I ask you to comment on it the recently retired uh former acting director of the central bureau of investigation cbi uh mr nageshwar Rao he put out a heat filled tweet after the demise of swami agnibash now no we were shocked people were shocked later he put it down but to expect a former IPS officer I mean you may have disagreements with swami agnibash the person has passed away he's dying was it necessary to even make a statement like you know I wish the god of death uh uh yum yum raj had taken him away earlier I mean I mean how do you react to a former police officer making these kinds of public statements I don't know I never heard of this gentleman till he made till he became the director cbi and that time also he was showing signs that he is aligned to a certain party that is not a good thing you can't be aligned even if you feel you can give a vote to to that party there there is it's your choice but not uh show openly that you are aligned with the party because you are supposed to be quite distant from political uh you know the politics of the day you are supposed to enforce the law and and enforce it fairly so he's obviously not a person who is true to his oath and uh as regards the this that he has made that I read I read that and uh I was surprised because whole old Hindu culture does not permit somebody to make remarks about someone who was already died so obviously Hinduism is not what he follows uh the type of Hinduism he follows is something else I don't know what you call it you know I was on a I was on a television channel which is particularly supportive of the ruling regime and they were discussing this Omar Khalid's case and his alleged affiliation with a sort of a Muslim extremist group on the base of a of a of a conversation as soon as I mentioned the name Julio Ribeiro the anchor and some of the panelists they got into a wild fit he said what does Mr. Ribeiro know you know I mean yeah he's not been around for a long time you yourself says it's been 30 years since you stopped being a police officer you retired as a police officer and then he says he has passed on fake information about it and attacks on churches and attacks on victims they're trying to crash you it seems your name still you know provokes some of our you know right wing I should say pro-government television so-called anchors and their panelists I would love to have your reaction no I want to state very clearly that I have nothing against any political party not the neither the party in power now I mean I've got great friends and I've got great respect for some of the BJP leaders I met in Hita Bilashi for instance who was the head of the who was the president of the BJP in Punjab when I was there I is one of the finest men I have ever met and I have great respect for him and I've written about it in my book great respect for Mr. Vajpayee also and he chose me to be the governor of JNK which I turned down for reasons that I mentioned to him I mean particularly the work I was doing in Mumbai because I was more interested in that work and then so I have nothing against the BJP as such and when they do good work for example this government had that very good practice of sending money directly to the bank accounts of the of the of the beneficiaries which I thought was a very very good idea of theirs or a very good thing that they did and I praise it there's no question of my being of being in any way but people who are totally engrossed and don't paper over all the wrong things that somebody can do I mean when for example the congress government in in power in Mumbai when when they were cash for transfers I've personally written about it about cash for transfers and I said that this is a ridiculous way of of of running a government and Mr. Sharath Pawar himself came and spoke to me about it and said he's going to stop it so I can tell you that I write against anyone who who does something wrong and which is unjust to the people of this country no there is no question of taking signs during the time you were the commissioner of police in Mumbai between 1982 and 1986 you talked about how some of your subordinate officers were asked to release a high profile gangster because he was going to provide money to the the party of the chief minister during the elections so it's clear at that time the congress party was in power I don't know which chief minister you're talking about but you are you yourself have said from fighting terrorism in Punjabi or now fighting corruption well you know no this was this corruption was before I went to Punjab it was the home minister who later became the chief minister and he said I'm the home minister of Maharashtra minus Mumbai city so I said sir why why minus Mumbai city he said you never listen to me so I said sir there's no need for you to ask me anything if it is fair and just and according to law but if it is not according to law please don't ask me I'm not going to do it so the person you said that he wanted released not only money but also muscle the man had a lot of muscle and then so they wanted that for their election and I said it is not my job to to help you in elections that was not the reason why I joined the police force not to help people in their election that is the job of the politician you do your job I'll do mine and he didn't like it incidentally I must mention this very important later on when he became the chief minister and the poor man is dead now but at that time the the then police commissioner invited all the retired commissioners for a big celebration of 150 years or something of the commissioner and this chief minister presided and he mentioned this in his talk to the policeman he mentioned this and he said now I understand the importance of what he did this is what would you like to name him yes there's no problem he is Mr. Deshmukh Velasrao Deshmukh okay the late Velasrao Deshmukh Mr. Ribero I'm going back to a point I raised earlier what the police force was that during the time you were a senior police officer and what it is today you think the big change that has happened is that it is now in certain parts of the country divided a long religious slice they've been communally polarized would you go along with what I say you see this communal feeling is something that is dormant among a lot of people it's coming out now because it is being encouraged but in the police force also they come from the from the public so they have this people have that that little bit of a of a feeling against some other religion or community even cast wise so then but if the man at the top that is the police commissioner or the dgp of the state he is a person who's straightforward and it's very clear that these things are not on they do the policemen are trained to follow their leader if you have a good leader who does not get involved in such considerations I think they follow the leader the leader gives them an order they will follow it and they will it will ensure that it is done for example during the communal riots in 1984 in Mumbai when I was the commissioner I told the chief minister I'm going to pick up all the the couples all the the you know the cutting edge leaders of the shift in a all in one night and I called all my officers and told them you will if you let off one you will be in trouble they brought them all and the whole thing stopped the next morning everything was you see this is the way you should deal with communal riots put the actual people who are instigating behind bars immediately I did it in Gujarat when there was the five months the army was there army was and the only thing they know is to apply the curfew order and the people were without jobs and then suddenly they sent me there and I dealt with it like I would in Mumbai arrest all the people who are behind the the provocation on the on the all these communal types who who actually uh foments all the trouble they are the ones who have to be put inside so you are saying and I'm going back to where I started the reasons why the Delhi police has not taken action against those who provoked the riots is because of the political pressure and political affiliation of these individuals I have no doubt about that that is I have no doubt about it whether it be Kapil Misha or Anurag Thakur or Parvesh and I can go on and on yes you are right all right my last question to you sir uh you know there have been two assassination attempts on your life once in Jalandhar in October 1986 and then when you were India's ambassador to Romania in Bucharest in August 1991 on both occasions these were sick militants who are unhappy with your actions as the head of the as the director general of police in India when you look back on your career and and you said that you you're writing public letters with a heavy heart you say you grieve for a country which has where there's so much hatred and so much dangerous hatred that has been spread around large sections of the people including poor people what is the way forward what do you have to tell young people there are large numbers of people young old middle age who look up to a person like you they look up to you as an officer of integrity who had no form of dealing with the likes of Dao Debrahima for that matter as you yourself mentioned a little while back Shiv Sena leaders what is the message that you'd like to give to individuals and who are today at the receiving end of a regime which is not just intolerant but arguably vengeful I can only tell you what I am trying to do here and with along with a number of old IPS and IAS officers and the people from the general you know from society who feel like me doctors and others that we have formed a trust Mr. BG Deshmukh who was a former cabinet secretary he was one of the co-founders and he was the person we we looked up to he gave us very sound advice and we ensured that the young people in this colleges that they were told about the two great problems that this country faces one is of course corruption and the other is communalism and if these two are not checked we will never be able to take our place at the main table in the committee of nations we have been impressing upon them that they should shun these two evils and and work together as young people as future leaders of this country and we do that almost every day and I think this is a great extent to the people with whom we have interacted we have been successful the ones with whom we interact some of them have come back to us wanting to be more useful in actual work every daily attempts to talk to other students so we are trying to do that and I think if more people in different parts of the country set up such NGOs you may call it or even groups or whatever whichever way they want to structure it but that should be our attempt people like us who feel that this is not on that human beings are human beings and whether they follow one religion or the other what does it matter there was no religion when men first came in the world it came much later when when homo sapiens started thinking about how he came there at all that was the time before that there was no religion and religion is this explanations for the unknown so unless they understand that and say that how different gods can make different people that's not possible even if you believe in the theory of creation yeah thank you thank you so much Mr. Debedo thank you very much for giving us your time and your messages and I hope those who heard you and watched you would be inspired by what you've said thank you once again and keep watching Newsweek