Introduction:
Police encounters are something that we all know about i.e. extrajudicial killing of a criminal or terrorist by the police supposedly in self-defence. Just two days back gangster Vikas Dubey was killed in an encounter while taking him from Ujjain to Kanpur. The police have said that he tried to escape while an accident occurred with the vehicle while others say it was a coverup so that he does not spill the secrets of the politicians tied with him. These kinds of stories have been repeat many times since our independence. Some are genuine while some are suspicious. It is important to bring out the light on suspicious cases.
Controversial Encounters
Since independence police have used its power beyond its jurisdiction to handle some cases in their own way. It involves gangsters, terrorists from all backgrounds. In many of these cases, it later turn out that the victim was innocent. But still the people responsible roam freely. Mumbai before the 1990s had faced encounters done on. Especially those with the ties to the Mumbai underworld which was particularly strong at those times. The encounters have been hail to have clear up the problem Mumbai faced from such underworld activities; but many times innocent people were also target. One of the encounters was that of Manya Surve on which a movie is also. The gang wars also lead to the killing of many police officers.
The same process has been used by the Punjab Police to root out the Khalistani movement. From the state and since Yogi Adityanath became the CM of Uttar Pradesh; many encounters have also occurred to clean the state from all its gangster history. Some of the most controversial encounters are-
In 2003 Sadiq Jamal was shot in an encounter. The police claimed that they had information about his planning to kill Modi. Later after an inquiry by the CBI. It was said that Jamal did not match the profile that was related to the plan to kill Modi. So many police officers were later accused in the encounter case. In 2004 the infamous smuggler Veerappan who known for killing thousands of elephants for poaching was shot dead; in an encounter by the Tamil Nadu Special Task Force. Some say that the encounter was staged and was a cover-up thus a fake encounter.
One more case which is still talked about is the Sohrabuddin encounter. He was a wanted criminal for extorting money from marble traders in Rajasthan and Gujarat. But Gujarat Police claimed that he was a terrorist of Lashkar-e-Taiba. In November 2006 he was arrested and taken to a farmhouse and three days he was found dead.
Perhaps the most well-known encounter which took the country by storm was the Batla house encounter in 2008. A movie is also made on this issue. In Jamia Nagar of Delhi, the special police team killed two suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorists. But one inspector Mohan Chand Sharma also died. Many questioned the way in which the encounter was done and National Human Rights Commission conducted an investigation; into the matter upon request by the People’s Union for Democratic Rights; which gave a clean chit to the Delhi Police.
Legal Guidelines
The Supreme Court and the National Human Rights Commission have framed certain guidelines that are to be followed in cases of custodial death. In 1993 the commission had established guidelines that every custodial death has to be intimated within 24 hours and the post mortem report and the other documentation has to be given within 2 months. An FIR is registered under Section 302 of IPC to penalize culpable homicide. The burden of proof is on the defence which in this case will be the police. In the case of Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee v. Government of Andhra Pradesh[1], the High Court recognized that illegal killings by policemen are taking place with impunity.[2] They made it mandatory to charge policemen with culpable homicide.
It was stayed by the Supreme Court and upheld in 2019. In the case of People’s Union for Civil Liberties & Anr vs State of Maharashtra and Ors[3], the court-mandated that every custodial death would be probed as per Section 170 of the Criminal Procedure Code. It also issued guidelines that the investigation for an encounter shall be conducted by the CID under the supervision of a senior officer at least a level above then the head of the encounter party.
Opinion of the Masses
There are many different types of opinions that are by the citizens of this country on this issue. Some say that it is sometimes necessary to conduct such encounters when you know that the gangster wields immense power. This is the reason that the Vikas Dubey encounter was hail by many as a good action because the gangster earlier had arrest and was release scot-free. There is also public support when the crime was is heinous. The Hyderabad rape case encounter rejoiced across the country because everyone wants swift justice to be meted which the judiciary cannot fulfil. People were already angry at the time that the Nirbhaya case took.
We should take this point in consideration that the ones who were kill could have been anyone and it was never prove that they were the ones who had commit rape. The swift justice aspect is the reason that Mumbai Police could carry on so many encounters of the Mumbai underworld. Many also see the fault in such system because it basically defeats the purpose of the judiciary and goes against the tenets of Article 14 which states that “The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws”. Many times the encounters are done on a political and social bias which can become dangerous as then the people will start living in fear and stop criticising the government which is a much-needed practice in any democracy.
Conclusion
We have seen how encounters have been a part of the police history of India since independence. Many times it has been necessary to weed out the complex criminal network like the Mumbai Underworld and UP’s gangsters but by large it has been use to terrorise the local population to comply with a politician or to vent out some personal revenge with a person.
Corruption is a big issue in India and this is probably the reason why many killings are done to protect politicians criminal secrets. It is important that we start questioning the police on the way they take law into their own hands without caring about human rights which are the most basic right that any kind of government has to give. The Human Rights Commission and different NGOs have to come together to bring justice to such people who without any criminal activity become a victim of such mob justice.
References:
[1] 2007 5 ALT 639
[2] Apurva Vishwanath, Encounters: What rules the law lays down, and why they are flouted, The Indian Express, (July 13, 2020), https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/vikas-dubey-kanpur-encounter-law-nhrc-guidelines-explained-6501890/
[3] Criminal Appeal No. 1225 of 1999
0 Comments