South African Police, Overport, December 1961. Seated: _-Consts. B. Naidoo and A Ganesan. Centre row: I-D-Consts, M Moodley, I-Const. Arumurugan, I-Sgts S Chetty, S. Pillay, I-Consts. Guranna, G Nagamuthoo and I-D-Consts Cupsamy. Back from left: I-Consts. Chinasamy, Perumal, L. Moodley, D. Jalaser, I-D Consts M. Pillay, I-Consts Moonusamy, R. Chetty and G. Paliathan.
WHEN I watch certain top-level policemen shuffle before the Madlanga Commission, dragged there not for valour but for getting tangled in corruption and criminality, I feel not sorrow but derision.
They are not guardians of justice; they are the hollow echoes of uniforms once revered, now reduced to props in a national farce.
Once upon a time, policemen made headlines for meticulous investigations, for medals pinned to their chests, for certificates proudly displayed on their lounge walls that spoke of distinguished and meritorious service. Policemen were the steel in the spine of the nation.
Today, too many of them are making headlines for the wrong reasons, not as hunters of crime but as its accomplices. They stand on the wrong side of the law they swore to uphold.
