Viral video shows 'criminal' holding pistol after being shot in encounter, UP Police draws flak

Already facing criticism from different quarters over their encounter spree, the Uttar Pradesh police were left red faced after a video, purportedly showing a 'criminal, who was shot in the leg in an encounter, holding a pistol in his hand while being virtually carried by the cops, went viral on social media platforms.

The video shows two cops helping the injured criminal, who is seen holding a pistol in his hand, to walk after the encounter.

According to the sources, the police, in Uttar Pradesh's Jalaun district, about 250 kilometres from here, received a tip-off that five miscreants were making plans to loot vehicles on the Kanpur-Jhansi highway near an overbridge, a few kilometres away from the district headquarter.

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Acting on the tip-off a police team intercepted the miscreants and asked them to surrender but they opened fire on the cops. The cops retaliated and in the snuing encounter two miscreants sustained bullet injuries in their legs while three others were arrested.

The cops had to carry the injured miscreants as they were unable to walk, sources said. A video surfaced a little later showing one of the miscreants holding a pistol in his hand while being carried away by the cops.

UP police faced trolling on the internet with many netizens terming it a ''filmy encounter''.

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Earlier also a video had gone viral on social media showing a cop pointing his pistol on the head of a 'criminal' during an alleged encounter in Mathura district. The video showed the cop putting the pistol on the criminal's head and then removing it.

The opposition parties had accused the state police of resorting to fake encounters as a 'cover' to hide their failure to nab the real culprits. The statistics revealed that as many as 178 alleged 'criminals' had so far been killed in armed encounters with the police in the state since Yogi Adityanath took charge in 2017.

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav, while referring to recent killings of two alleged shooters in the recent Prayagraj shooting in which a key witness in the murder of an MLA had been sprayed with bullets, had said that the encounters showed that the state government was trying to 'hide' something.