Lenin Raghuvanshi of People’s Vigilance Committee of Human Rights (PVCHR) says that such encounters damage the rule of law and criminal justice system. “This also leads to politicisation of criminals as fearing police action, they join the ruling party. They continue their criminal activities under the patronage of local leaders,” he added.
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The high number of
encounters in Uttar Pradesh in recent days has raised an eye-brow with
opposition parties calling it planned murders
Uttar Pradesh under ‘Yogi’
Adityanath resembles the wild wild west, rather than a scene of calmness
usually associated with ascetics. The police records are an eye opener; it
speaks volumes about the penchant of policemen to kill in fake encounters.
In the last 10 months (up to
February 3) 1,143 encounters took place in Uttar Pradesh in which 38 top
criminals were killed and 298 others were injured and around 3,000 criminals
were arrested. Besides, the police have imposed National Security Act (NSA)
against 167 criminals and seized assets worth nearly ₹150 crores in this
period. Four police officials have also been killed and 257 others injured
during these encounters.
In the most recent shoot-out,
four young men who were returning from a wedding reception on February 3 were
stopped by a trainee police inspector Vijay Darshan at a busy crossing in Noida
at 10.30 pm. They were told that their crime was playing loud music in their
SUV. The police opened fire at Jitendra Yadav, 25, a gym owner, who was at the
wheel and received a bullet injury on his neck. His condition is still
unstable.
The three others who were in the
car said that the inspector had threatened them with “encounter” because
killing them would give him an out-of-turn promotion. In the FIR Dharmendra
Yadav, who was in the car, wrote that Inspector used the word “encounter” and
“out of turn promotion” when he opened fire. The police, in a jiffy, suspended
the erring inspector.
“Such behaviour from a police
officer is unacceptable,” says Love Kumar, Superintendent of Gautambudh Nagar.
But, the message is that the recent encounters in the name of controlling crime
are nothing but cold-blooded murders where trigger-happy police officers have
gunned down criminals just to get promotion.
The National Human Rights
Commission Chairman Justice S Rafat Alam has sought a report from the
Gautambudh Nagar SSP saying the report which has appeared in a section of media
seems to be a violation of human rights. In his February 5 order, he asked the
SSP to file report within 15 days.
Majority of these encounters have
been reported from western Uttar Pradesh with 449 such cases reported from
Meerut zone followed by 210 in Agra. Around 200 cases are reported Bareilly
zone and 98 from Kanpur zone.
Such a high number of encounters
has raised an eye-brow with opposition parties calling it planned murders.
Samajwadi Party spokesman Rajendra Chaudhry said, “This seems to be a planned
cleansing with an eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The police have become
trigger happy because of the award associated with the killings.”
The SP leader is not off the
mark. The Yogi government has now authorised the Director General of Police to
declare an award of ₹2.5 lakh and the district police chief can announce an
award of ₹25,000 for any wanted criminals. This has everyone wondering if the government
had announced these payments to allure policemen to kill people in the name of
controlling crime.
Senior police officers such as HR
Sharma defend police action saying such efforts are necessary to control crime.
The ADG (Law and Order) Anand Kumar said that the police is targeting only
those who are creating problems. “We ask them (criminals) to surrender and if
they open fire then the police retaliates. In these firings, many cops have
been injured too,” he said.
The police justification will not
stand court scrutiny. In a majority of the encounters where criminal has been
killed, there is a clear modus operandi. A criminal is arrested but he escapes
from police custody. After a few days, the police traces and kills him in an
encounter. However, the accomplice of the dreaded criminal always manages to
escape.
This happened in Saharanpur too,
where the police claimed to have gunned down a wanted criminal Shamshad in an
encounter. Three days before this encounter in September 2017, Shamshad had
absconded from police custody in Gagalhedi area. The SSP announced an award of
₹12,000 after his escape. The report says Shamshad sustained bullet injuries.
One of his aides managed to escape. The police claimed that Shamshad had
threatened a local doctor Piyush Sanawar and demanded ₹15 lakh. A similar
pattern was followed in the case of Sunila Sharma, for whose head an award of
₹15,000 was announced. He too fled from police custody and was killed in an
encounter in Gomti Nagar in Lucknow.
In Azamgarh, the police claimed
to have gunned down a criminal Sujeet Singh aka Budhwa, who had a cash reward
of ₹50,000 on his death. Police said that Budhwa escaped from police custody
while being taken back to Rampur district after being produced in a Mau court
in connection with a robbery on August 11. In this encounter the aides of
Budhwa escaped. Police claimed that Budhwa was injured in a gun battle with the
police and on his way to hospital the injured criminal confessed that he was
involved in the heist of an SBI bank in Mau, a bank robbery in Madiyaho
(Jaunpur) and half-a-dozen other robberies.
Lenin Raghuvanshi of People’s
Vigilance Committee of Human Rights (PVCHR) says that such encounters damage
the rule of law and criminal justice system. “This also leads to politicisation
of criminals as fearing police action, they join the ruling party. They
continue their criminal activities under the patronage of local leaders,” he
added.
#UttarPradesh #NSA #fakeencounter #YogiAdityanath #UPPolice #pvchr #u4humanrights
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