What’s eating Tamil Nadu police? Going by the alacrity with which they detain or arrest people, at those purportedly needling politicians, or at least the Chidambaram family version of the breed, the cops in Rajnikanth land seem to be more alert than all their brothers or sisters in khaki across India.
Only the men in white in Kolkata are perhaps on the ball at the same level under chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s guidance and goading — she nurses the unique hobby of prodding the police into action at the drop of a hat, needling question, or at the sight of ghost Maoists.

In Chennai, or neighbouring Puducherry, the cops are so impatient to get their hand on the collar of any man who seems to trouble the netas that they can even make an arrest at the crack of dawn, belying Bollywood’s much-used educative lessons on Indian policing: lazy, pot-bellied men who reach a spot much after the hero has beaten, or browbeaten, all the baddies.

Such was the case with Ravi, a small-time industrialist in his mid-40s who was nabbed and charged under the harsh Information Technology Act on October 30 for allegedly targeting finance minister P Chidambaram's son Karti. His crime? Ravi allegedly harassed Karti by posting a few messages on Twitter stating that junior had amassed more wealth than even Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Two Tuesdays later, the TN cops were back in action on November 13, arresting one Ameer Tawah, a man from Kerala in his mid-30s. His crime? Tawah was trying to shoot pictures of Chidambaram senior in Chennai airport.

The police reportedly claim Tawah prevented a public servant from discharging his duty while he was photographing the honourable finance minister, and have thus charged him with wrongful restraint. There were no further details, though.

Public servants doing duty while a minister/VIP is around? That’s straight from Ripley’s ‘believe it or not’ stable. The only duty of a public servant, especially police, during a VIP visit, dear Mr/Ms Inspector who arrested poor Tawah, is to ACT busy, not to BE busy.

Let’s not mix up our verbs.

Please do not offer such explanations in future, dear officer, for if that is not laughable, most Indians would not laugh at top-10 Santa-Banta jokes either.

A report on NDTV website also quoted police sources saying Tawah had a first-class ticket to fly from Chennai to Dubai via Delhi. “That circuitous route — instead of a direct flight to Dubai — was among the explanations he (Tawah) was asked to furnish,” the report said.

Really? This time last year, I worked for a newspaper in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and each time I paid for the ticket I took a flight to Kolkata, and then on to Delhi. I returned the same way. Why? It worked out much cheaper. So should I have been worrying about being asked to explain that “circuitous route”, and why I didn’t take a direct Dhaka-Delhi or Delhi-Dhaka flight?
Why, I once took a flight that went Dhaka-Chittagong-Kolkata-Delhi, and returned the same way. Why? It worked out even cheaper, of course. Scary to imagine being asked to explain the “circuitous route” by cops on both sides of the border.

According to PTI, the finance minister expressed surprise over Tawah’s arrest on Thursday, November 15, and sought his immediate release. In a statement issued in New Delhi, Chidambaram said, "I did not know about the incident until the media reported it yesterday evening. Immediately, I told PTI that I had no knowledge of the incident and nobody had told me about it then or subsequently.

"I have asked my office to get in touch with Tamil Nadu police and request them to release the person immediately.”

Very good, sir, but who will tell the cops that they are not auditioning for jobs with the proposed National Counter Terrorism Centre, so close to your heart when you took over from Shivraj Patil as home minister after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, and kept it just as close to your heart till ceding the post to Sushilkumar Shinde just the other day?

Who will tell our police that every overenthusiastic question, or emailed caricature mocking ministers/chief ministers, or angry tweet accessible only to a handful of relatives, or seemingly naive acts of photographing VIPs does not merit charges of being a Maoist, or seditious, or a potential terrorist?

And who will ask the cops to take a chill pill and follow the script, not to pen new ones in their enthusiasm?