Encounter method is intrinsically dangerous

When he was installed as Chief Minister of India’s most populous state three years ago, Yogi Adityanath swore to exterminate crime by exterminating the criminals. He made this his first priority. Soon, police death squads shot down some hundred odd ‘criminals’, none as big as Vikas Dubey! Why this don was allowed to operate, no one will know now that he is dead. And if there are still some more Vikas Dubeys around, only the UP police and the local residents will know.

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One thing that everyone in India knew was that after he ambushed and killed eight policemen, including a deputy superintendent and three sub-inspectors, his days were numbered. If Yogi had used kid gloves in dealing with a don who had cocked a snook at him and his strong-arm policy, Yogi’s career in politics would hang by a thread. And if he had not applied his stated ‘no quarter to criminals’ policy to Vikas Dubey, his chances of succeeding Narendra Modi as the country’s Prime Minister were doomed.

No citizen of our vast country believes the police version of the don’s death. A ‘most-wanted’ criminal being escorted by a dozen officers, specially chosen, could not by any stretch of the imagination snatch a revolver from one of his battle-tested guards, and even if he had, he could never in his wildest imagination dream of taking on a dozen, specially chosen, policemen bent on avenging their fallen comrades. The entire script was hastily and stupidly constructed, as ridiculously as the story put out by the Telangana police in the case of the rape-murder of a young woman veterinary doctor last year.

But though no one was taken in by the police stories, most citizens supported the encounter method of determining the guilt of the accused and executing the punishment. It is this public approval of shooting culprits dead that perpetuates the encounter system that shifts the power of adjudication from the judiciary to the police. And, in the process, makes a country that aspires to become a regional power, on the way to become a world power, look like a banana republic.

Making one authority into an investigator, prosecutor and judge, all three into a trinity of one, is a sure path to injustice and finally to perdition. But this is exactly what Yogi Adityanath seems to be wanting to do. He is not the only politician who patronises this shortcut. I remember the then Home Minister of Maharashtra, Gopinath Munde, openly stating in the Vidhan Sabha, when cornered by the Opposition about the rising crime graph, that he had ordered his police chiefs to eliminate these criminals on the streets! Such utterances of politicians actually endear them to the haves, who are the ones who finally make public opinion.

It is necessary, therefore, to educate this element of society — the haves — about the downside of the encounter policy. Encounter specialists are chosen from the more enterprising and active police officers who are also at the same time unscrupulous, with a streak of cruelty that is activated at the time of action. Since encounter specialists end up as elimination squads, they soon mutate into criminals in uniform. The uniform gives them immunity from the mischief of the law! Killing a person in cold blood is murder. But if police officers charged with tracing murderers and bringing them to justice are commissioned instead to commit murder themselves, they get a feeling of being supermen who transcend the law! Unfortunately, society idolises them and the film world makes biopics on them. This perpetuates ‘encounters’ further.

It is very dangerous to turn law-keepers into law-breakers with official imprimatur. Most often, these officers obtain information of the movement of killers from their rivals in the crime world. In the process, members of rival gangs meet their nemesis at the hands of encounter specialists. One may say that this is a good way of finishing off the underworld, playing one gang against the other. It does not work that way!

The encounter specialists do not stop at playing the good cop. They are tempted to excuse the criminal activities of the gang that provides them information on rivals, which translates into remission of the sins of their criminal informers. Extortions increase considerably when such sins are forgiven. The encounter specialists also become very rich. Recently, an encounter specialist, out of job, contested the Maharashtra Assembly elections. He had to declare his assets before contesting. They were more substantial than the assets of a senior banker. It is amazing that the Income Tax Department ignores such disclosures.

It is true that the judicial process has skidded off its rails. The government could mitigate this particular crisis by filling all sanctioned posts in the Supreme Court, the high courts, the district courts and at the bottom of the ladder: the magistrate’s courts. The demand of defence lawyers for adjournments is another reason for unforgiveable delays in the disposal of cases. The Supreme Court had told the lower courts not to grant more than one or at the most two adjournments in all, but this is not happening, probably because the lawyers wield more clout than is good for governance.

As regards the police, it is their bounden duty to investigate crimes diligently, honestly and in time. This is not the case now because many police leaders have themselves been appointed on extraneous considerations and are eager to repay their political patrons. This leads to politicisation, which leads to corruption and injustices. The solution lies in de-politicising the police and following the dictates of the Supreme Court in the Prakash Singh judgment. The fear that the police will misuse their newfound operational independence is totally misplaced if only honest officers, dedicated to the service of the people, are chosen to lead and not those who wangle postings by lobbying.

The leaders of the underworld like Vikas Dubey are created by the nexus they form with politicians and the police. Once installed in their empire of crime, they provide money and muscle to their political benefactors at the time of elections. They also keep the police officers in clover. Officers who oppose their activities soon find themselves in limbo because the political patrons of the criminals misuse their power of transfer to marginalise them.

Once the vacancies in the judiciary are filled, adjournments disallowed and the police depoliticised, the creation of Frankenstein monsters like Vikas Dubey will end! Of that, I am certain! It is a tall order to take the political class out of its comfort zone where the police are made a mere pawn in their grand designs. But if the people understand the importance of the rule of law, they will compel the politicians to seek other paths to consolidate power.