At the outset, let us say we are not surprised by KarnatakaChief Minister H D Kumaraswamy directing the police to eliminate the allegedkillers of a party worker without showing any mercy. The CM was caught tellingthe police officer that he need not fear any repercussions, he would take careof the fall-out. Votaries of constitutional rule were expected to react the waythey have after the taped conversation became public. We too count ourselvesamong those who insist on a strict adherence to the rule of law. Fakeencounters or encounter killings certainly violate the law of the land both in wordand in spirit. But, having said this, we refuse to close our eyes to thereality of the present-day India. Longbefore we attained freedom and since then, we have practiced selective killingsof elements considered inimical to the state.
In certain parts of Punjab, the police were given the carteblanche to eliminate brigands and dacoits who had menaced the people fordecades. The operation was successfully conducted by a senior police officerwho, as a result, was decorated with many medals and awards. Why, in Punjabagain the threat of terrorism was quelled with selective killings of suspectsunder the leadership of the celebrated cop, K P S Gill. In the late 80s andlate 90s, the threat posed by Naxalites in West Bengal was effectively tackledby chief minister Siddartha Shankar Ray who gave a free hand to the police toneutralise youths influenced by a flawed ideology and in thrall of Mao’s RedBook. Why, one of the assassins of Indira Gandhi was killed in cold blood inside the compound of her houseeven after both Sikh guards had promptly surrendered themselves after killingher in cold blood. In Maharashtra, the cop who allegedly became an ‘encounterspecialist’ had a movie made after him, ‘Ab Tak Chhappan’. The point: encounter killings are part of thearsenal of statecraft from times immemorial, especially those states which areyet to refine their governance systems and lack fully responsible and educatedcitizenry. But a caveat is necessary. When the state abuses that rarest of raretools to target its political enemies or to settle private scores, it becomesevery right-thinking citizen’s duty to take up cudgels against it.
In the case of theKarnataka chief minister, his orders tothe police to eliminate the alleged killers of a party worker do not meet thecriterion of a threat to the established order. Here there was no higherpurpose at stake but sheer vengeance found reflection in the chief minister’sillegal orders. This is unacceptable. However, Kumaraswamy remains uncontrite,refusing neither to disown the order nor to offer apology for its sheerillegality. He justifies himself, saying he was emotional after he came to knowabout the murder of a party member.
Meanwhile, if selective encounter deaths have been anintegral part of the statecraft we have practiced from the time India attainedfreedom, it is also true that investigations into these too have been usedselectively for entirely political purposes. It is a public secret that theencounter deaths in Soharabuddin case were seized upon by the Congress-led UPAgovernment to prevent the rise of the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modito the national level, even though the Intelligence Bureau itself had spoken ofhis being a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative out to target Modi. Though all theaccused in that case, including BJP President Amit Shah and a few top IPSofficers of Gujarat, have at long last been absolved by the court,there is no denying that thanks to a vengeful central government, a lone caseof encounter deaths was selected for investigation while several hundred morewere allowed without even a preliminary scrutiny. If the encounter killings in Gujarat under Modi was wrong, which it was, so were hundredsothers elsewhere, including that of the assassin of Indira Gandhi in 1,Safdarjung Road.
There was, therefore, nothing but vendetta and political revenge in foisting investigations inthe Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter deaths. Both Modi and Shah along with a numberof top police officers were put through the ringer. And those who think justicehas not been done in this case, ought to spare a thought for the thousands ofencounter deaths under the aegis of the very party which singled out only theSohrabuddin Sheikh case for investigation. A sense of perspective and anacquaintance with the ground realities will lead to a balanced outlook.Meanwhile, it is significant that the Congress party, which keeps theKumaraswamy government afloat, has not allowed its professed faith inconstitutionalism to demand the chief minister’s resignation.
