Revision summary
Rohit’s options are full release, partial trade, forceful dispersal, patient extraction with dialogue, mediation, or freeze. Dilemmas include law versus crowd safety, prize incentive, women used as a ring, and tribal trust versus past killings. The justified course is to keep all ten, refuse a siege bargain, and de-escalate with women police, a local mediator and a planned corridor. Firing into the ring would lose the district; release would teach that a crowd can open a jail. Precautions: women in the first line, no trophy video, medics, no collective punishment, watch for a second ambush.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
The naxalite map has shrunk, but pockets remain. Rohit, SP (Special Operations), has just overpowered ten hard-core cadres and their automatic weapons. Two carry a ten-lakh prize. More than five hundred tribal women now surround the village and demand release. If he does not release, the crowd may explode. If he does release, the State’s word and the dead of earlier years become a joke. This is force, gender, tribe and law in one afternoon.
Body
(a) Options available to Rohit
First, he can release all ten to buy the road out, which saves his team today and returns rifles to the forest tomorrow. Second, he can release the eight and keep the two prize cadres, a bargain that still teaches the crowd that a siege works. Third, he can order a forceful dispersal with lathi and perhaps fire, which may open a corridor and may leave women dead on a success story. Fourth, he can hold the arrests, move the prisoners in a tight box toward a pre-planned LZ or road, call additional force to a perimeter not through the women, open a loudspeaker and a woman officer’s channel, and wait the crowd’s hunger and night while not humiliating anyone. Fifth, he can invite a trusted local mediator — a teacher, a priest, an elected tribal woman — to explain that the men will face a court, not a forest execution. Sixth, he can freeze, which hands the clock to the loudest. The live options are three, four and five; one and two are capitulation dressed as tribal sensitivity.
(b) Ethical dilemmas
Duty to law (arrest of persons with automatic weapons) versus duty to life of five hundred women and of his own constables. Unique role of SP (Special Operations) versus replaceable tactical pride. Prize money as a perverse incentive to hold at any human cost. Women as a human shield — some voluntary, some pushed by the party — versus seeing every woman as a combatant. Tribal historical wound (CRPF camp, fake encounter memory, lost land) versus the two prize men who may have killed a teacher. Transparency versus operational security. Gandhi’s talisman (the poorest woman in the ring) versus Kautilya’s need to not let a siege become constitution. Integrity of means: a secret release to look like an escape would be a lie.
(c) Most appropriate option
The appropriate course is to keep every arrested person in custody, not to fire into the ring, to extract along a prepared corridor with shield and patience, to put women police and a local woman interlocutor in front, to film the prisoners’ safety so a rumour of torture cannot ignite the night, and to ask the District Magistrate to own the civil face (food, a promise of fair trial, no collective punishment of the village). Why. Release rewards the tactic and endangers the next patrol. A massacre of women loses the district for a decade and fails distinction. Patience plus lawful custody honours both the dead of the past and the living women who are not the rifles. Prize money is not a moral reason to kill; it is a reason not to trade. Aristotle’s courage is the mean between rash fire and cowardly release.
(d) Extra precautions with women protesters
Assume presence of children and pregnant women. Women police in the first line; male hands off except to prevent a weapon. No sexualised abuse, no filming of faces for trophy. Lathi only as last shield, not as a lesson. Water, shade, a medic. Do not cut the village’s water as collective punishment. Loudspeaker in the local language. Watch for a second ambush using the crowd as cover. Body-worn cameras if they exist, for the police as much as for the crowd. Separate any armed male who infiltrates the ring. After extraction: no revenge search that burns a house; record injuries; let the DM hold a mahila sabha. International humanitarian distinction is not only a war law; it is why a republic does not win a village by breaking its women.
Flow diagram
Conclusion
Rohit should not trade the ten for a quiet road, and he should not clear the ring with fire. Hold the arrests, talk through women officers and a local mediator, extract with patience, and leave the village unpunished. The women are a crowd with a history, not a free-fire target.
Quick related
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Case study. Sneha is a Senior Manager working for a big reputed hospital chain in a mid-sized city. She has been made in-charge of procurement for a new super speciality centre. She notices that her brother, who is a well-known supplier in this domain, has also sent his expression of interest. Since the hospital is privately owned, it is not mandatory for her to select only the lower bidder. Her brother's company has been facing financial difficulties and a big supply order will help him recover. Allocating the contract to her brother might bring charges of favouritism. (a) What should be Sneha's course of action? (b) How would she justify what she chooses to do? (c) In this case, how is medical ethics compromised with vested personal interest?
Next question on this syllabus topic (2024 · Q10). View answer →
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If the two prize men will certainly escape later from jail, should he release to save lives now?
A leaky jail is a separate reform. Trading them in the field teaches the next five hundred women to surround the next arrest.
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Can he use tear smoke?
As a last, wind-aware, medically backed tool to open a corridor, possibly. As a punishment of a tribal village, no.
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