THE COWBOYS OF THE U P POLICE
The recent killing of Apple executive Vivek Tiwari by a Lucknow policeman is another example in the long list of illegal police encounters that occur in different parts of the country.
The NHRC is reported to have registered 1,782 fake encounter cases between 2000-2017; Uttar Pradesh alone accounting for 44.55% of these extra judicial killings. The present government in Uttar Pradesh has been blamed and rightly so for almost encouraging the police to go in for such short cut methods to solve the crime problem.
As usual, and this is another reason for our failure to take serious note of the problem and find solutions, the incident has been politicised. The political parties have used the incident to call the present dispensation in Lucknow a ‘rogue’ government These parties forget that the record of their governments is equally bad, if not worse. In fact, no government or state can really claim to have a clean record in respect of fake police encounters. As long as the incident remains hidden, neither the government nor the police department shows concern. The hue and cry is raised only when the entire story comes out in public.
Every time an encounter death occurs, the police supported by the state government show it as the result of police acting in self-defence, as has been done in this case also. This is done because the Criminal Procedure Code authorises the police to use force to the extent of killing a person only in two situations- to disperse unlawful assembly when there is imminent danger to life and property and the assembly can not be otherwise dispersed and to arrest a person who is resisting arrest and is involved in the commission of an offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life. Since these circumstances can not be cited in defending the killing of alleged criminals, the only way is to project the police as using such force in self defence.
Some police officers, as has been done by DGP, UP in this case too, tend to explain away any evil in the police department in terms of “rotten apples” theory. They claim that but for a few rotten apples, the basket is otherwise clean. A few instances of brutality or other crimes do not justify, they say, wholesale condemnation of the entire force. This may be true, but it does not reckon with popular psychology. The good which the force does dies, while the evil which an individual policeman perpetrates lives for ever, producing cumulative hostility in the public. When he commits a crime, it gives rise to a feeling of betrayal, amounting to a breach of trust.
Why do such killings take place. There are various reasons. One is the support that the culture of encounters receives from different quarters. It is supported by the politicians when it suits them. When controlling crime or dealing with law and order problems effectively becomes highly important from political point of view, fake encounters get state encouragement and protection, with complete assurance of impunity granted in advance. Mostly, such assurance is implicit; but occasionally even clear directions are also given. This is not the first time that the police in UP have been asked to ‘thok do.’ It has happened earlier too. An example of this is the address given on April 30, 1998 by the then Chief Minister of UP Mr. Kalyan Singh. The Chief Minister while addressing the state police officers at a law and order review meeting in Lucknow said: "I want performance, results. I want you to take a vow that you will create a dhamaka (explosion) in the state. If noted criminals can be liquidated in encounters, do it. If you take the life of one person who has taken the lives of 10 others, then people will praise you. And I am here to protect you."
When the assurance of impunity comes from the highest quarter in the state, policemen become emboldened to misuse their powers or to become silent spectators to incidents involving major violations of law. They know that they cannot be asked to account for their misdeeds or acts of dereliction of duty.
Fake encounters are sometimes supported by the public too, particularly when crime and violence increase in society. Police deviance is bound to increase whenever the fear of crime whips up the rhetoric of war against crime and criminals. The danger of the public turning a blind eye towards the use of custodial or illegal violence by the police was seen in UP also when they lapped up the media headlines of February, 2018 “Scared of encounter, goons walk with placards in hands saying they will behave” or ‘Encounters send scared UP goons to jails.” A dirty Harry of Mumbai police, as per an article titled “Urban Cowboys” published in the Time Magazine of January 06, 2003, said “I don’t enjoy killing. But after we shoot some mobster, his victims look at me like God. That's the best part of the job."
The policy of fake encounters is wrong not only because it is contrary to law, but because it generally proves counter productive. It does not solve the crime problem. You do not kill crime by killing criminals illegally. What is worse is that this policy has the effect of criminalising the police force to an extent that they develop nexus with gangs and brutalising them to an extent that they do not hesitate to kill even innocent persons to extort money or to get awards and promotions.
To deal with the problem of fake encounters, there must be zero tolerance towards it from all quarters, particularly from the government and the police department. Don’t let the guilty men escape. Find out the truth and set up accountability mechanisms to punish them. Prompt disciplinary action should be followed by prosecution where it is required. NHRC’s guidelines, particularly with regard to registration and investigation of such cases, must be scrupulously followed.
