He has the streak of the do-gooder. He is friendly, approachable and definitely wants to do his little bit for the society. Not surprisingly, Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh Muralidhar Bhagwat was selected for the the 2017 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report Heroes Award by the US state department. He was lauded for his efforts to prevent human trafficking, particularly women trafficking.
Bhagwat is the third IPS officer to get the honour. The previous recipients of the award from India include Amod Kanth (2005), Kari Siddamma (2006), Kailash Satyarthi (2007), Sunitha Krishnan (2009), Sattaru Umapathi (2010), Swati Chauhan (2011), and Bhanuja Sharan Lal (2014).
Rachakonda is the largest in terms of area, close to 5091 sq kms, which also consists of the largest police station, the Adibatla police station which stands on 17,000 sq feet and was built at a cost of Rs 2.5 crores. Before becoming the commissioner of police at Rachakonda, Bhagwat worked in various posts, including IG security wing, Joint commissioner of police, Hyderabad city, DIG Eluru range, SP of four districts covering factionalism to extremism, DCP South Zone, DCP Cyberabad, SP, women protection cell in CID.
But immediately after passing the IPS in 1995, his first posting was in Manipur between 1997 and 1999. In fact he also won a medal of commendation for fighting insurgents. Then in 1999 he came to Andhra Pradesh as ASP Eluru. Then in the peak of naxalism in 2000 to 2004 he was posted to Adilabad. In 2005 he was posted as SP Nalgonda, where he started the Project Aasraa.
The Dommara community women have historically been sex workers. They are also known as 'Venkatasanis' and are largely found in Warangal, Nizamabad, Medak, Karimnagar and Nalgonda. in Andhra Pradesh. The men in the community act as pimps and procurers. In 2005, in a special drive at Yadagirigutta by Mahesh Bhagwat and the Nalgonda Police, 15 pimps and organizers were arrested, along with 35 sex workers. The ladies were promised rehabilitation. Project Aasara was launched to tackle this serious issue of flesh trade with the help from the government and the NGOs.
Bhagwat helped these women by including them in self-help groups, giving them hand loans, training and employment in nearby industries, while the men from the same community were given jobs as security guards. Bridge schools were started the children under Sarva Sikshan Abhiyan. "I won two awards for this project, including the International Association of Chief of Police award at Boston in 2006 and a civil rights award called the Washington Law Enforcement Award," he says.
It was when he was the SP of the Women Protection Cell that the first unit of the Anti-human trafficking was started. "In fact, the women protection cell was initially meant for DV cases," says Bhagwat. "We trained many police officers in the academy along with NGOs. We got a good conviction rate during that period of 2009," he adds.
"When I was the SP of Kadappa, I dealt with cases where women were sent to the Gulf from Rayachoti under the guise of being maids," he says. In 2009, Bhagwat was promoted as DIG of Eluru range, where he decided to renew the operations and targeted places where the sex workers were operational. "We started with Pedapuram and closed down 13 brothels there. Then we closed the shops at Rajahmundry, Bheemavaram and Tadepalligudem. Women from Mandapeta in East Godavari district were being sent to brothels in Dubai and luckily they were also rescued by the Dubai police."
It was a tedious process considering the Dubai guys were using Mangalore as their port of entry. Passports were impounded and the fellow was brought to Kakinada and finally produced in court. "Finally, I returned to Hyderabad as a resource person at the National Police Academy, Lal Bahadur Academy and other institutes in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru," he says.
"We closed 40 apartments and lodges in Rachakonda area. We used decoys to get to the organisers. We stopped forced labour, child labour, children in brick kilns and at Narayanpur we rescued 54 children from a spinning mill," he says.
"I have contributed on trafficking for eight books and am a resource person for a course at IGNOU. My argument is that the police alone cannot do it. All departments have to work in tandem to break the cycle of sex trade," says Bhagwat.
He thinks that India needs one more law, like it is in the US and that is the `Trafficked Victims Protection Act'. "The customer has to be punished. If you control demand, then the supply automatically comes down. Sweden has changed its laws where the police and judiciary have got together to bring stringent laws against the clientele," says Bhagwat.
He quickly adds that the existing laws too have to be utilised and the schemes have to reach the victims and the mindset of the society has to change.
He was selected for the award, for the efforts and hard work he has been putting in to prevent human trafficking for the past thirteen years. Mahesh Bhagwat is from Pathadi village in Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra. After completing his engineering from the Government College, Pune in 1990, he worked on watershed development and on CSR activities for Tata Motors for four and a half years.
Bhagwat also spends his personal time on mentoring candidates who have applied for civil services examinations. He has trained 300 candidates till date and 84 of them made it, including toppers from TS, AP and Maharashtra. He said he decided to help civil services hopefuls who were unable to go for coaching. A WhatsApp group was created for candidates from TS and AP with around 70 members and another group for Maharashtra candidates with around 260 members, in addition to candidates from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Bhagwat spends around four hours daily to guide the hopefuls. His advise to all candidates was to keep their feet on the ground and the desire to serve burning in their hearts.