IPL Spot-Fixing: Why Can't Indian Police Work Together and Solve the Common Issue?

This is like a scene from a Bollywood film where a dutiful police officer bashes up the goons - the Delhi police, who were not long ago slammed for failing to curb crime rate in the capital, swing into action and arrested three cricketers from Mumbai last week in connection with spot-fixing scandal.

Interestingly, the Delhi police secretly went to Mumbai and arrested three Rajasthan Royals players - S Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila - in the wee hours of 16 May without the involving of the Mumbai police. They alleged the cricketers were paid in terms of millions to under perform in an over in the ongoing IPL.

They went on to carry out raids in the capital and arrested several other alleged bookies. Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar later announced the arrests and brought the IPL spot-fixing scandal to the living room.

Then the Mumbai police's turn came. They took up from where the Delhi police left and recovered the belongings of Sreesanth like laptop, iPad and iPhone from his hotel room besides arresting key bookie Ramesh Vyas and small time actor Vindoo Dara Singh.

Both the Delhi and Mumbai police hogged the limelight, exposed their findings bit by bit everyday, making even the media find difficult to put all the pieces of information together. And it was obvious that they were not willing to work together to solve their common issue - spot-fixing.

When asked why the Delhi Police did not seize the speedster's belongings, Mumbai Police Crime Branch (CB) Joint Commissioner Himanshu Roy said, "I work for Mumbai Police. Ask this question to the Delhi Police."

On the other hand, Delhi police were miffed at the action of the Mumbai police. "They are just trying to save face. They failed to check all this spot-fixing happening in Mumbai," Deputy Delhi Police Commissioner SN Srivastava had said.

It appeared that the Mumbai police were not willing to share the information they got from the Sreesanth's seized items to Delhi Police's Special Cell that probe the IPL spot-fixing, arguing that they need court permission to share. It was also reported that Delhi police would approach the court to have access to the information found on the cricketer's electronic items.

Himanshu Roy claimed that the Mumbai and Delhi Police are extending full co-operation in the probe but their counterparts need court permission to have access to all the information they sought to know from them.

"We had sought an appointment with Himanshu Roy (Mumbai Joint CP, Crime) to hand over a letter from the BCCI as the Supreme Court has said that the BCCI must complete its inquiry within 15 days. We have requested the Mumbai Police to help in our inquiry. At the same time, we also promised to help in their investigations," BCCI CAO Ratnakar Shetty told the media.

The question is - why can't the Indian police work together when they are dealing with the same issue? Why can't they share the leads with their counterparts in other states that will help solve issues in the country?  And is it necessary to leak every bit of information they find during the investigation before being presented to the court?

If working together and sharing information among various police departments within the country is so difficult, solving issues concerning the nation will be even more difficult.