JOIN USThe Supreme Court’s harsh observations about fake encounters should wake up the law-enforcement authorities to the undesirability and dangers of extra-judicial killings. The court is right in condemning them as cold-blooded murders which fall into the category of the rarest of rare crimes that call for the most stringent punishment. It is a different matter whether the killers in uniform should be hanged to death but the observation may be taken as an expression of the court’s dismay over the tendency of the police and other security agencies to take the law into their hands and award summary capital punishment to suspected law-breakers. It is not only those who are suspected to be involved in criminal activities or terrorism who are killed in fake encounters. Even innocent people become victims of arbitrary killings, and there are a number of such cases, especially in disturbed areas like Kashmir.
The latest incident is from Poonch where a special police officer and a territorial army jawan picked up a mentally challenged young man, shot him in the forest and passed it of as an encounter with a Lashkar-e-Toiba gang. It was claimed that the man who was killed was a divisional commander of the LeT from Pakistan. The fake encounter was staged to claim rewards and promotions for a brave fight against terrorists. The culprits have now been arrested and are facing interrogation. Similar killings have taken place before also. They tarnish the image of the security forces and alienate common people. It is not only in Kashmir and the North-East that men in uniform resort to such killings. Though on paper there is a zero tolerance policy towards human rights violations, in practice they are quite common all over the country.
The rule of law demands that even the worst criminals are entitled to a proper investigation and fair trial. The argument that inadequacies and problems in the investigative system and delays in the judicial process make punishment difficult in many cases is wrong and unacceptable. In many cases, as in the Poonch incident, it is not even suspects but innocents who are done to death. A fake encounter does not happen on the spur on the moment. It is planned and executed with careful consideration and is therefore no different from deliberate crime. Such killings should have no place in a civilised and legal society.