USE OF FIREARMS BY THE POLICE
On July 4, 2009, a young man called Ranbir Singh was killed by the police in Dehradun The CBI has now found the police encounter to be fake. In another incident that occurred in Imphal in Manipur on July 23, a young man, suspected to be a former insurgent, and a pregnant lady were killed in a police encounter. According to the Tehelka’s expose of this shoot out,the encounter was fake.
The incidence of police use of firearms to deal with violence, individual or mob, or during encounters, fake or genuine, is quite high. According to government statistics, the police in this country during the first 8 years of the present decade (2000 to 2007) used firearms in all its operations in as many as 9746 incidents, killing 4123 civilians and injuring another 4032 persons.
The use of firearms by the police to quell violence has a number of implications, the most important of which relates to the image of the police in a democratic society. Irrespective of the level of violence prevailing in society, every bullet fired by the police leaves a long trail of blood and bitterness. And when the encounters in which firearms are used are found to be false, the damage caused to the police image is irreversible. It projects them as a bunch of people who are brutal and trigger happy.
It is believed that the police derive their powers to use firearms from the law of the land. These powers are somewhat indirect as there is no law in the country that regulates the acquisition, possession and use of firearms by the police. The police represents the state which by definition has a monopoly over the legitimate use of force. As an agency of the state, they get the authority to use force. The problem, however, is that there is no uniform standard, legal or otherwise, to decide when the use of force is legitimate and when it becomes illegitimate. The only principle that is supposed to guide the police is the principle of minimum use of force
The law that guides the police on use of force is the Criminal Procedure Code. However, this Code has no provision about the use of firearms by the police, though it does talk of use of ‘armed forces’ for dispersing unlawful assemblies. The Cr P C authorises the police to use force only in two situations: to arrest a person and to disperse an unlawful assembly. Section 46 authorises the police to arrest. If the person resists arrest or attempts to evade the arrest, the police officer “may use all means necessary to effect the arrest” but it does not give a right to the police “to cause the death of a person who is not accused of an offence punishable with death or with imprisonment for life.” There is a third situation in which the police can use force, even to the extent of killing somebody, and that is in self defence. This right, in fact, is available to everyone in law. It is this provision that is invariably used by the police to explain or justify the death of a person in encounter. This provision comes to their rescue not only in fake but also in genuine encounters, where they are required to explain as to why they chose to cause death instead of arresting the accused, thereby violating the principle of minimum use of force.
Neither the Cr P C nor any other Indian law spells out clearly the details of what the principle of use of minimum force should mean. In respect of arrest, it allows the police to “actually touch or confine the body of the person to be arrested” and with regard to dispersing the unlawful assembly, it requires the armed forces to “use as little force, and do as little injury to person and property, as may be consistent with dispersing the assembly…” There are however, instructions in police rules and regulations that prescribe how this important principle should be interpreted, particularly while dispersing riotous mobs. It suggests that firearms should be used only in the end when all other means to bring the situation under control have failed. Additionally, irrespective of means used, the quantum of force employed must be the minimum required to control the situation. However, these instructions are of little help to the police in dealing with individuals known or suspected to be criminals. The police have enormous discretion in such cases, which they occasionally misuse.
This underlines the need to frame a comprehensive policy regarding the use of firearms by the police in dealing with the civilian population. The sole purpose of such a policy must be to ensure that firearms are not used by the police indiscriminately and where used the damage to life is minimum. It must include guidelines about the issue and use of firearms; type of firearms to be used in different situations; the regular and in-service training to be provided to different ranks in the operational use of firearms; the type of non lethal weaponry and self protective equipment that should be available with the police; situations which call for independent inquires; action to be taken in case of wrongful use of firearms; tactical options and strategies to be used in different situations that would reduce the need to use firearms etc.
The policy must be based on a study of data about the use of firearms by the police in different operations. Presently, no such data is available.. The only data that is available is published by the National Crime Records Bureau in their annual publication called Crime in India. NCRB merely gives statistics about the number of occasions in which the police use firearms against riotous crowds, extremists, dacoits and ‘others’ This data is sketchy and scanty and always outdated. It is necessary to make arrangements to collect and document all necessary details about every incident of police firing. These details must include the circumstances in which the police used firearms in different situations, extent of damage caused; inquiries done, if any, and their findings; action taken against officers found guilty of using excessive force; police units or officers found prone to use firearms etc.
