Introduction:
Vikas Dubey began his career in crime in the early nineties. He formed his gang and aspired to be a Don of Kanpur. To protect himself he joined BSP as his political support. Vikas Dubey has been named an accused in the murder case of BJP leader Santosh Shukla. He was the minister of state in UP government. Governments came and went in the subsequent years but Dubey’s clout grew with each ruling dispensation be it the BSP, Samajwadi Party, or the BJP. He has been arrested previously on many occasions but he was released. He has been accused of around 60 criminal cases. Vikas Dubey had emerged as a serious law and order challenger in Kanpur but his friendships across the political spectrum offered him protection. He also made friends in the police department to add an extra layer of security. He developed political ambitions and also, he wanted to become an MLA[1].
His wife held positions at District Panchayats. The caste-ridden politics of Uttar Pradesh led him to emerge as some kind of a Brahmin strongman, who could ensure the votes of his community within his domain of influence that was growing by leaps and bounds. Irrespective of political party, his followers would go all the way for whoever Dubey backed. Known for switching loyalties with every change of guard in Lucknow, Dubey had his well-wishers in all parties. Dubey’s rise from the local hoodlum to the position of a privileged gangster would not have been possible without the active patronage of successive UP state governments and their leaders, who were always ready to keep their doors open for him.
The gangster supported the local leaders at the time of elections to gain the local Brahmin votes in Kanpur District and also provided muscle power to the politicians. on October 12, 2001, when the BJP leader Santosh Shukla was murdered in the police station by Vikas Dubey. And when the trial court acquitted him, he was released on lack of evidence and absence of single eyewitness set him free. The policemen present in the police station before the court of law said they had seen nothing. On 2-3 July the police sought to arrest Dubey and others accused of being in his criminal gang. Police say the suspects blocked the road with excavators and fired at them from rooftops, where the eight police personals were martyred. And the assailants fled before police reinforcements could reach the area. Dubey was on the run since July 3 after he and his men ambushed and killed the eight policemen out to arrest him in his Bikru village.
The Judicial System and the Encounter
The Gangster Vikas Dubey was arrested at the Mahakal Temple in Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh), the MP police handed over the Gangster to the UP Special Task Force (STF). The 48-year-old gangster was shot by the police team when he tried to escape after the vehicle, he was traveling in met with an accident amid heavy rain in the region. The STF team was bringing him back to Kanpur from Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain city[2]. According to a police statement, the gangster snatched the gun from one of the policemen and tried to escape. He was surrounded by policemen and asked to surrender but he refused and fired at the policemen and in retaliation police personal shot at the gangster claiming as self-defense. The Uttar Pradesh Police silenced him forever and shut his book of criminal career.
The politicians who were there all along in his journey to making him an underworld don is what makes his killing in an encounter so controversial. The dead do not speak is a big source of relief for all those who had their nexus with him and were worried about getting exposed were he to survive. The Dubeys well-wishers were not only in political class but also in the police department who gave tips of police activities carried out against him. The New Delhi Television channel reported that police had stopped media cars following the police convoy on the highway half an hour before Dubey was killed. There was no immediate police comment.[3] Has it become so easy to by-pass Court system and calling every high-profile case as Encounter in the garb of socio-media justice lawful. Several opposition leaders, who had demanded a thorough probe to unravel the gangster’s political nexus, claimed that the encounter was engineered to bury the facts.[4]
It is also pertinent to note that the criminal justice system in India lags on many levels and further because this gangster had political connections, there was a chance that he would have gotten away with the murders of the policemen. According to the article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and any criminal charge against him.[5]
The officer who proved incapable of protecting their service gun should have been fired or suspended by now. The fact here is how the equipped police contingent being unable to keep a dangerous fugitive under their physical control. How far would he have run away on foot with an army of armed police persons surrounding him? The real question is who is a Criminal? The criminal himself or the police. Both Breaking Laws and not respecting any Due Process. It is believed that the statement given by the police is wrong and they have killed Vikas Dubey in a fake encounter. While a panel has been set to probe into the suspicious encounter, various questions arise with regard to the morality of the cops.
The custodial deaths raise the question of who is policing the police. The National Campaign Against Torture (NCAT) in its “India: Annual Report on Torture 2019” stated that a total of 1,731 persons died in custody during 2019 i.e. death of about five persons daily.[6]
In 2012 judgment, in the case of Om Prakash & Ors vs State of Jharkhand & Anr., the Supreme Court of India observed, “It is not the duty of the police officers to kill the accused merely because he is a dreaded criminal. Undoubtedly, the police have to arrest the accused and put them up for trial. This court has repeatedly admonished trigger-happy police personnel, who liquidate criminals and project the incident as an encounter. Such killings must be deprecated. They are not recognized as legal by our criminal justice administration system. They amount to State-sponsored terrorism.”[7]
The Supreme Court of India in its landmark judgment Peoples Union for Civil Liberties v. State of Maharashtra [(2014) 10 SCC 635][8] observing that this “encounter” philosophy is a criminal philosophy, had warned policemen that they would not be excused for murdering in the name of “encounter” on the pretext that they were carrying out the orders of their superior officers or politicians. Since March 2017, when the incumbent government came to power in UP, more than 100 people have been killed in the course of such shootings by the police that are considered to be extrajudicial killings by the civil society organizations in India. The record of the past three years, since the incumbent chief minister took power in March 2017, exceeds all previous records.[9]
Losing faith in the Judicial System
The incident of gangster criminal has shocked the nation. It’s the example when the Police tries to assume and usurp the powers and functions of a Court of Law established under the Constitution of India by executing a criminal in extra-judicial fashion, without proper investigation and without affording him a just and fair opportunity of trial before a Court of Law. If such incidents of encounter take place and there is no Judicial investigation then there will be peace and harmony in the minds of the people. They will lose faith in the Indian Judiciary and rule of law by the Constitution of India. The cases will become the precedents.
The people expect justice from the government and not the revenge. The matter is not limited to this incident, but if this continues the police can shoot anyone and there will be no judicial trial or proper investigation. Last year also we heard about the Telangana rape case incident, where the four men were shot down in an encounter.
If the police take the law into their hands then what’s the use of judiciary? How the common man will believe these are not fake encounters? There will be fear in the mind of common people. It’s the job of the police to deliverer the accused not to give justice and it’s the work of the judiciary. Police is an agency for administering and ensuring the law. The guardian of the public against the unlawful activities, protector of their rights. Incidents of custodial deaths are increasing and the faith in the police authorities is being largely reduced. The foundational principle of the justice system is repetitively, relentlessly and ruthlessly trampled by the continuous reproduction of the narrative that ‘since the deceased was a criminal, it was alright for the police to bypass the rule of law’.
The Telangana Incident
A woman veterinary doctor is gang-raped and killed. The assailants burn her body on the outskirts of Shadnagar in Telangana’s Ranga Reddy district. Hyderabad police arrested four persons, Mohammad Ali alias Mohammad Arif, Jollu Shiva, Jollu Naveen Kumar, and Chintakunta Chenna Keshavulu in connection with the case. The news of the brutal rape and murder left the entire nation outraged. Protests held across the nation demanding swift punishment for the perpetrators. There was an outrage in the parliament and MPs demanding the death penalty, public lynching of the rapists. The central government assured that it was ready to amend the laws and bring in speedy justice. Investigation gathers pace as the Telangana government set up a fast-track court for a speedy trial.
On December 6, all the four accused shot dead in a police encounter as they allegedly tried to escape while the crime scene was being reconstructed.[10] In this case, the society praised for the speedy justice but it also raised questions over extra-judicial executions. The news of the encounter killing led to celebrations in some quarters and concern in others. We need to know more about the incident. Until details emerge we should not rush to condemn. But extrajudicial killings are otherwise unacceptable in a society of laws. It will set up a horrifying precedent in the country. It is also something to be worried about, the way people have lost their faith in the criminal justice system. Together all the state governments will have to take action on how to strengthen the criminal justice system.
Jayaraj and Fenix Incident
The incident happened on June 19, when 59-year-old P Jayaraj and his 31-year-old son Bennicks (Fenix) were picked up by the Sathankulam police in Thoothukoodi district for allegedly violating lockdown guidelines by keeping their cellphone shop open over business hours. They died at a hospital in Kovilpatti on June 23. Eyewitnesses had alleged that they were stripped naked, their knees were smashed and their chest hair was ripped out. They further claimed that the cops inserted metal objects into the victims’ rectum leaving them bleeding till their lungis had to be changed seven times in about 5 hours. The allegations of the severe police brutality were later confirmed in the autopsy reports.[11]
In 1997, India was one of the 83 countries which signed the United Nations Convention against Torture which prohibits torture of any kind to an individual under arrest or detention and requires them to educate their law enforcement personnel, civilians, medical personnel regarding adhering to the provisions under this treaty. Sadly, India hasn’t ratified the terms even after so many years. What we correlate is that the police should not take law into their hands. The story of Jayaraj and Fennix has lead the whole country to question the misuse of power by the Police and their motive of ‘protection’ of citizens.
How can we trust the police force to protect their fellow Indians if this the treatment they give to innocents for just criticizing them? Furthermore, if the citizens don’t allegedly abide by the lock-down rules will they face such extreme consequences as is in this case? Has our government failed to create a stable power structure? The arrest of a person should take place in accordance with the provisions mentioned in the code of criminal procedure, 1973 otherwise it would be an unlawful detention. Magistrate failed to even communicate with both accused. He allowed Jail Custody. Does it not amount to conspiracy with the Police which lead to the actual custodial death in the Kovil Patli Jail. It is a shameful act by not just the standards of law enforcement by also humanity.
Conclusion
There should be a proper inquiry in the matter. The legal reforms should be brought by the government. The action should be taken against the extrajudicial killings in the country. If such incidents happen regularly it will set a horrible precedent in the cases. The encounter raj should be stopped. The rule of law should not be taken into hands by the police. The judicial proceedings must be followed. The police brutality is increasing in the country. There should be peace in the country rather than these bloodsheds.
References:
[1] https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/who-is-vikas-dubey-all-you-need-to-know-about-kanpur-gangster-1698602-2020-07-09
[2] https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/vikas-dubey-was-hit-on-his-chest-arm-as-he-tried-to-escape-from-police-report/story-yKTwJtkSPnWwvzPT5Xo86I.html
[3] http://southasiajournal.net/indian-gang-leader-vikas-dubey-shot-dead-while-in-police-custody/
[4] https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/vikas-dubey-was-hit-on-his-chest-arm-as-he-tried-to-escape-from-police-report/story-yKTwJtkSPnWwvzPT5Xo86I.html
[5] https://www.humanrights.com/course/lesson/articles-06-11/read-article-10.html
[6] http://www.uncat.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/INDIATORTURE2019.pdf
[7] Om Prakash v. State of Jharkhand, (2012) 12 SCC 72
[8] PUCL v. State of Maharashtra [(2014) 10 SCC 635]
[9] https://thewire.in/government/uttar-pradesh-yogi-adityanath-encounter-vikas-dubey
[10] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/all-4-accused-in-hyderabad-gang-rape-murder-shot-dead/articleshow/72393178.cms
[11] https://www.india.com/news/india/tamil-nadu-custodial-deaths-2-police-officers-arrested-on-murder-charges-as-cbi-takes-over-jayaraj-fenix-case-4072952/
0 Comments