The Kovalam police station has been in the news for quite some time, though not necessarily for good reasons. In recent times, the police station hit the headlines first on March 29, when a gang of burglars used technology to their advantage to loot a bank.
After the burglary, a police team that left for Jharkhand in search of the burglars had to return empty-handed, allegedly after neighbours, families of the accused and even the local police in Jharkhand prevented them from arresting the culprits. The team, the police claim, zeroed in on the houses of the burglars, but still couldn’t nab them. Plans are afoot for another mission later this month.
In the second case, a notorious criminal — Karate Johnny — fled the spot after stabbing three civil police officers from the Kovalam police station as they attempted to arrest him. Nearly a week later, police are yet to nab him, though they say they located Johnny in his beachside village in Poovar. An arrest hasn’t been possible since he has support of the local people who could resist police attempts to enter the village.
Johnny, according to the police, had assaulted a youngster in January. Three months later, the Poovar Circle Inspector got a tip-off that Johnny was unwinding in a bar at Kovalam, following which he alerted the Kovalam police, who despatched three of their men, unarmed, to catch a man who has a track record of attacking policemen without hesitation, and who is yet to be arrested in connection with a riot in 2005 in Poovar in which more than 100 huts gutted, allegedly in a communal blaze.
Whether a little bit of coordination, between police forces of two States in one case, and between superior officers in the second, could have made a lot of difference is the question.
Reporting by Dennis Marcus Mathew
