Lucknow, August 15
Responding to a news channel’s telecast of live footage of a “fake encounter” in the posh Civil Lines area of Allahabad last year, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati today ordered a CB-CID probe to bring the guilty policemen to book.

Director general of police Vikram Singh confirmed that the chief minister had ordered a CB-CID probe and had directed the investigating agency to submit its report within 30 days. The original footage has also been sought to make it part of the investigation.

The DGP who viewed the tapes admitted that prima facie it looked like a fake encounter. “The government has taken the issue very seriously and the guilty policemen will not be spared,” underlined Singh.

A state’s police had come under severe castigation from the National Human Rights Commission on July 26, while investigating yet another fake encounter carried out by the police in Sultanpur on February 12.

Calling for a CBI inquiry, the NHRC had asked the UP police not take law in its own hands. The NHRC had recommended an investigation from the central agency, as it had noted that the local police would not be independent as senior officers of the rank of SSP and DSP were involved.

The video tape of the Allahabad encounter showed how a petty criminal, Pintu Mishra, was chased by policemen for around 2 km and shot dead at Civil Lines on September 17, 2006 in spite of the wounded victim raising his hands as a gesture to surrender.

The sequence of events, as narrated by the police at that point, had said the two men riding an unnumbered Hero Honda Glamour motor cycle had been spotted near the Central Bank at the main Civil Lines crossing during a routine checking of vehicle registration numbers and licence by the police.

When they tried to stop them, the pillion rider hurled a crude bomb at the police picket, severing head constable Ashok Pandey’s torso, it had claimed. Constable Jai Prakash escaped with minor injuries.

The pillion rider, Jiten Mishra, fell down due to the impact and shrapnel injuries. The other rider, identified as Pintu Mishra, dumped the motor cycle and tried to escape on foot.

The remaining members of the police team gave him a chase and shot him down around 2 km away. The police version had then claimed that he had been shot, as he had hurled another bomb, injuring constable Ashok Sharma.

However, the footage showed that the man was unarmed and requesting the policemen on pursuit to allow him to surrender.

Speaking to a news channel, the then SP City R.P.S. Yadav had claimed that the two motor cycle-born criminals had come to kill a major criminal, Sujit Singh Birwa of Varanasi, who was lodged in the Allahabad jail and was to appear in court that day.

Meanwhile, another case of police encounter was reported from Bulandshahr this morning where a criminal was shot dead by the police at Meerut highway, around 12 km from Bulandshahr.

According to SSP Sujeet Pandey, four criminals aboard a looted truck coming from Muzaffarnagar were intercepted in the Gulabathi area.