The debate over the Hyderabad police and DCP V.C. Sajjanar’s unusual (to say the least) methods of “crime scene reconstruction” may be raging in rest of the country, but Madhya Pradesh has its own story of instant justice.This story highlights how the power of the Indian Administrative Service and the mai-baap sarkar far exceeds the power of the police. If you rub them the wrong way, the entire administration can come together and literally bury you six feet under. You may live, but without food or shelter, perpetually on the run. Some may call it a condition worse than death.Jitendra Soni was born into a jewellers’ family in Indore. Very early on, he discovered that crime pays, especially if you indulge in it blatantly and then become an editor-publisher. So for nearly two decades he indulged himself – opened a bar, a cabaret joint and several hotels, built a palatial house on government land, financed Bollywood movies and brought bar dancers from Mumbai to serve in Indore.On the side, he opened a blackmail counter. He also discovered that government officers including policemen were easiest preys. First he would bring them women, then record the deed. He would pay off those interested in money and record it. He had millions of phone conversations on tape and reams of sex tapes.Also read: Police Raid, Seal Office of Madhya Pradesh Newspaper that Reported on Honey Trap ScandalHe even bought any authentic sex tape available in the market on important officials or politicians, and then his victims would receive their obligatory phone calls. The municipal corporation was so much in his debt that they overlooked every building norm, land grab or illegal construction over two decades as Soni accumulated an empire worth Rs 800 crore. A corner stone of his “success” was also his eveninger Sanjha Lokswami. He would occasionally publish juicy gossip and transcribe sex tapes on its pages just to keep his scared flock in order.On December 1, he went too far. He published a transcript of a tele-conversation between a former secretary of Shivraj Singh Chauhan, alleging that he was involved with Shweta Jain (who had been arrested in October along with five of her colleagues in a “honey trap” scandal). Jain is accused of using women to please officials and later arm twisting them for government contracts. The chief minister formed an SIT and investigations are still on in the sensitive case involving several officials and politicians.However, Soni would have his pound of flesh. He not only published the damning report, he is believed to have kept several other pages designed and ready on several other IAS officers. He was naturally being helped by someone from within the system.But the swift action that followed in the wee hours of December 5 has shaken Indore to the core. A fleet of Poclain machines, excavators and JCBs moved into all his properties, with dozens of municipal and civil officials and hundreds of policemen. Within hours, his 7,800-square-feet bungalow was demolished, his office sealed, two of his hotels broken down and his cabaret bar flattened. His newspaper license has been cancelled on the pretext that it was fake and its offices have been sealed. Every scrap of hardware available in any of the properties has been destroyed.His son Amit has been arrested on charges of blackmail, extortion and running a prostitution house. The family is on the street. If that wasn’t enough, his ancestral jewellery shop has been issued a notice and patwaris are measuring it from every angle for illegal occupation. The destruction is so far gone that two decades worth of accumulation has nearly all been flattened. Soni is on the run, and it is unlikely that he will ever be able to pick up the broken pieces.Arun Sehlot, a Bhopal-based publisher-editor of a newspaper, had also learnt the same lesson when he tried to needle Chouhan’s ministers and officials. Like Soni, he was also accused of having grabbed land, built unauthorised colonies and run other similar rackets. A couple of IAS officers, one of whom is now in the prime minister’s office and another who was then close to Chouhan, moved in with the dreaded Poclains and JCBs, and within minutes brought down his sprawling office complex and opened all files related to land grab. Sehlot buckled, and somehow saved his empire on his knees.Also read: People Displaced by Sardar Sarovar Dam Begin New SatyagrahaAnother newspaper owner in Indore has had his building pulled down by an irate collector. Those ruins still stand on the main Agra-Bombay road, as a reminder of the power of the state.“Several blackmailers, builders and crooks have been running media networks in the state as a cover for their activities. We can’t call them news organisations, even though working journalists there may not be to blame,” says a senior police officer. But these very same officers have let them flourish for decades without question, and in fact benefitted from their continued existence.Each and every file, each and every circumvention and land grab, is known to all these officials and they do nothing. They are safe in the knowledge that nothing can be done to them. They can’t be held accountable, and if the time ever comes when the destroy button is pressed from the top, they will bring out the very same files with the alacrity of a Padma-nominated official for honesty.It’s the same. The police have their encounter where “the accused tried to run and attacked and we fired in self defence” theory. The IAS and its civil raj has its own theory of “greater public good”, wherein the might of the mafia is destroyed from within. The aam janta has no choice but to pray that they don’t cross their paths.