Genuine violator or scapegoat? Ovine arrest and sheepish explanation prove Kanpur cops were not kidding

Police personnel around the world are not in the habit of playing the goat in order to lighten the atmosphere in fraught times; if anything, they are charged with the onerous task of separating the sheep from the goats during the course of their investigation of criminal incidents. But when news emerges that the Kanpur police — recently rid of their most wanted human criminal under controversial circumstances — had put a goat in the lock-up on charges of being out on the street without a mask, it does beg the question whether they were serious or merely kidding.

Interestingly, the policemen’s reported explanation that if pet dogs were wearing masks, they were entitled to impound any itinerant animal without one, did not get anyone’s goat. Instead, it became the butt of jokes, leading to the sheepish clarification that the goat’s handler was the unmasked one, but had fled the scene to escape fine, leading to the animal being hauled off to the thana instead.

Perhaps the police action was meant to ram home the importance of wearing masks at this time, but with Eid around the corner, the chances of innocents being made a ‘bakra’ or scapegoat is not inconceivable. Particularly since, by ovine coincidence, 15 goats had also reportedly been ‘arrested’ in Hyderabad last week on charges of eating saplings planted by the government.