Encounter killings: A norm

Encounter killings: A norm

EditorialUpdated: Monday, December 09, 2019, 11:28 PM IST
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Cyberabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar briefing media persons about the police encounter with the accused in the rape and murder of the woman veterinarian, in Hyderabad. | ANI Photo

The encounter killing of the Cyberabad quartet of alleged rapists-murderers once again focusses on the endemic failure of the police. It lacks the wherewithal to perform its assigned function, including maintenance of peace, crime detection, VIP security and investigation, among others. The police, like other branches of governmental system is corrupt, inefficient and politicised. Its failures are compounded further by a lack of adequate funds, modern tools of policing, political interference and judicial delays. So, what happened in Cyberabad is not extraordinary from its point of view. That is the only way over the years it has solved all cases whenever it has felt under intense public pressure over a particular crime. Encounter killings by the police in all parts of the country have become a norm rather than an exception. Whether it was the challenge of young, idealistic boys known under the rubric of Naxalites in the Calcutta of the late 60s and early 70s, or the dacoits and brigands in PEPSU soon after Independence, or the Maoists in Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, or, for that matter, the Khalistanis in Punjab, the one and only approach the police had was encounter killings. And make no mistake about it. It enjoyed the ready approval of the incumbent political authorities. Indeed, those leading the police action against elements which the established elites found threatening to their existence were celebrated as public heroes, just like the head of the Cyberabad Police last week. For instance, everyone in Punjab glorified the late police officer K P S Gill. Before him another officer who had entered the popular folklore was Ashwani Kumar who had eliminated the menace of dacoits from Punjab. The point is that from the early years after Independence we have allowed the police to resort to extra-judicial killings whenever alleged law-breakers become inconvenient to our political masters. Instead of addressing the problem of inadequate police strength vis-à-vis population, lack of proper training and professional skills to detect financial and cyber crime, non-availability of forensic labs, etc., we decry police in case of a particularly heinous crime. And thus license an encounter killing. Remember a day before the Cyberabad encounter, our honourable MPs were competing with one another to demand death for the rapist-murderers of the 27-year-old vet. If that did not sanction encounter killing, what else it did? The public adulation for the police after their foul deed only sanctified such medieval acts. Remarkably, all through the public hue and cry over the gruesome crime, not a word was heard about police reforms.

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