- I Paid A Bribe
- 14 years ago
- 1227 views
Paid for retrieving lost phone
- Police
- Retrieval of lost items
- Paid INR 1,000
I lost my phone in August, and suspected the cab driver whose car I was traveling in when it happened. I filed an FIR and waited in vain for results. Two days ago, I got a call from Mr. X at the station saying the phone had been traced to a village nearby, and whether I wanted it back. When I said yes, he said I would have to pay "expenses". I played really dumb and pretended to not realise he was asking for a bribe. So when the appointed day came, I landed up at the station itself to ask him for it- his face was a sight to see! He phoned up his "partner"- a constable at the same station, and told me to come with him outside. I was still pretending to not know what he was saying, and asking "yaake? yaake?" (why?). Once my husband and I went out, his friend came up with the phone, and they both spun some yarn about taxi to the village costing Rs. 3000, to which we laughed that the phone itself wasn't worth that much. I just gave him Rs. 1000 without letting him argue. Then I asked for his acknowledgment on my complaint copy to show that I had received the phone, and after much dumb Barbie playacting, I finally got his signature!
After getting home and going through the phone numbers and messages left by the thief, I realised that it was the very same cab driver who we had suspected all along. So- no village, no taxi. In fact, the cop ********** have taken a bribe from the driver also to not report him for theft! I could see that the whole station was in cahoots and knew what was going on.
I shudder to think of far more serious repercussions to this bribing habit. No wonder folks can get away with murder in this country, starting from these people whose sole job it is to protect us, right up to the very highest corridors of power. It disgusts and shames me that I was even party to this rubbish, and I wish I'd had the moral strength to withstand the temptation of getting my phone back, to tell him to go to hell.