Poll Analysis | Emotionally Blackmailed for Bribe
The corrupt officer says “pay money to get your work done.” With this, you might deny to bribe. And then you stand defiant unwilling to budge. But how far would you push yourself not to pay that extra money?
Such is the case with many in our country who have faced harassing corrupt officers. Taking advantage of a vulnerable situation, a person driving with a baby in Bangalore was stopped by police for not carrying his vehicle insurance paper. On realising that he was driving with a baby, the cop tried to use this for his benefit.
I paid a bribe asked its readers “have you been emotionally blackmailed into paying a bribe? “ The result of the poll shows most readers to have been blackmailed for a bribe. 55 % of our readers admitted to having paid a bribe as a result of blackmail while 21% denied paying a bribe. On a smaller scale, 14 % of them confessed that they had been demanded a bribe and the rest 10 % have known a person who was blackmailed into paying a bribe.
Interestingly there are certain code words that these bribe takers use while asking for a bribe. A person from Haveri posted as to how he was demanded a bribe as a form of ‘tip’ to clear his salary and arrears bill. They requested him to offer some ‘tips’ for the work delivered.
In another incident, a person from Bangalore was asked to pay some money by the police to verify his passport. And to the respondent’s surprise the police personally demands money from him otherwise he wouldn’t get his approval. He also manages to threaten him of dire consequences of delaying the passport.
At such situations, many people have no other choice rather than to pay the demanded bribe. With the entire system being affected by corruption, it gets difficult to say NO to too many in the list.