Dhaliwal is every police chief's blue-eyed boy

Delhi CP BK Gupta couldn't stop raving about the south district DCP at a press conference after two accused in the Dhaula Kuan gang rape case were nabbed

It was a big occasion for Delhi police. The Dhaula Kuan gang rape case was like an albatross around the neck of the department. And with no major breakthroughs in the over a week, pressure was mounting.


Thanksgiving: (From right) DCP south HGS Dhaliwal, Commissioner of
Police BK Gupta and Joint Commissioner Southern Range Amulya Pattnaik.
PIC/Imtiyaz Khan

So, on Thursday when two of the four men accused of sexually assaulting a Mizo woman working in a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) in Gurgaon were finally arrested, it was perhaps fitting of the Delhi Police Commissioner to have conducted a press conference on the matter.

Joining BK Gupta were DCP south district HGS Dhaliwal and Joint commissioner Southern Range Amulya Patnaik. However, the most interesting thing in the press conference was the statements of the commissioner. Rather than describing the turn of events and the investigation, Gupta was seen praising HGS Dhaliwal profusely. The commissioner started by saying that Dhaliwal had done a great job. Again after a few brief statements on the case the commissioner started singing Dhaliwal's praises. Gupta mentioned how he had found Dhaliwal working till late at night on the case.

Hearing this 3-4 times a senior reporter from a Hindi news channel got annoyed and asked the commissioner: "Lead bataiye na; DCP ki tarif he karte rahenge kya (Tell us about the case; would you just keep praising the DCP)?" The commissioner realised that he had over done it and started focusing on the case.

The second blunder the commissioner made was telling the media about the PCR call made by the victim's colleague. According to Gupta, the first call was made 20 minutes after the abduction.

"Two beat officers arrived on the spot after a minute or two and one of them stayed with the girl and another one ran his bike in the direction where the kidnappers had gone. The constables were not able to understand the whole situation as the northeastern girl was speaking in English and the PCR call was made 20 minutes after the kidnapping," he said.

But Dhaliwal had earlier given a different account to the press. A day after the incident on November 25, he told the media that the first PCR call was made 6 minutes after the kidnapping and it was made buy the associate of the victim. Then another PCR call was made after 45 minutes by the victim as the rapists couldn't snatch a second cell phone from her.

But the reporters were not able to ask too many questions of the commissioner as he stopped many in their tracks by saying: "Hold on!"

The cops also failed to explain how the victim got a bundle of 10 rupee notes from the rapists which led the police to the Mewati gang. They didn't even answer questions about how the accused managed to flee after the incident.