Killer cops trigger fears in India
By S. N. M. Abdi (Special Report)
21 May 2007
INDIA is petrified of killers in uniform after an unprecedented confession by the Gujarat government in the country's top court that security forces shot dead a Muslim civilian in a 'fake encounter' â or a staged gun-battle.
Staged killings by the police and military are pretty common: similar cases come to light with alarming frequency in various states. But never before had the adminstration publicly conceded that it had blood on its hands. After admitting Sohrabuddin Sheikh's extra-judicial killing, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Gujarat government told stunned supreme court judges this month that policemen killed Sheikh's wife Kauser Bibi too and burnt her body.
Apparently, the woman had witnessed her husband's cold-blooded execution by the anti-terrorist squad and threatened to expose the killers. Kauser, according to some reports, was gang-raped by policemen before she was silenced. Her corpse was set on fire to destroy evidence.
The headline-grabbing case of Sohrabuddin and Kauser has rattled Indians and transfixed the nation amid calls by human rights groups and social commentators to severely punish rogue cops who break the law to maintain 'order'.
In the dock are trigger-happy policemen, para-military troops and army soldiers across India accused of killing thousands of men and women in so-called encounters claiming they fired in self-defence in gun battles with separatists and criminal gangs.
Thanks to the Supreme Court's activism, old cases are being reopened in several states.
Significantly, the majority of victims are Muslim men in their 20s and 30s. They are labelled terrorists and shot dead by law enforcement agencies. Police files say they were killed when they they were trying to escape. There are also instances of policemen acting as contract killers in property and matrimonial disputes. Moreover, Maoist rebels fighting for the landless poor and tribes-people are special targets of security forces who are a law unto themselves in backward regions.
In the wake of the Gujarat government's testimony, the alleged killers â three senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officers and their four subordinates â were promptly arrested.
But the jailed officials are fighting tooth and nail attempts by investigators to subject them to lie-detector, narco-analysis and brain-mapping tests.
Some experts blame extra-judicial killings on India's criminal justice system. They say that it takes decades to convict a dangerous criminal; laws are tilted in favour of the accused and corrupt judges do not think twice before granting bail. So for society's sake, policemen have to become executioners.
Police in major Indian cities, including the national capital, New Delhi and Mumbai, have so-called 'encounter specialists' or cops who are unofficially assigned the task of liquidating criminals.
Some of them, like Mumbai's Pradeep Sharma, have the dubious distinction of killing more than a 100 wanted men, while his protege, Daya Nayak, with 85 'successful encounters' under his belt, has been immortalised in a Bollywood film.
Sharma told an interviewer that most deaths at his hands were accidents. "When criminals on the run resist arrest, such encounters happen. It is more of an accident when we go to arrest criminals."
The other 'centurions' are Delhi's Rajbir Singh and Uttar Pradesh's Brij Lal. Criminals also dread UP's Navneet Sikera and Rajeshwar Singh, Kashmir's Hans Raj Parihar and Andhra Pradesh's J. G. Murali, whose 'scores' are 50, 23, 50 and 25 respectively.
The majority of such 'specialists' are household names in their respective cities, although sometimes their luck runs out and they are suspended for amassing wealth or hobnobbing with criminals. But they always bounce back.
Sheikh was gunned down in November 2005 in the suburbs of Gujarat's Ahmedabad city by the anti-terrorist squad which claimed that he planned to assassinate chief minister Narendra Modi. Branding Sheikh an operative of the Islamic militant outfit Lashkar-e-Tayaba, the police said that he wanted to kill Modi to avenge the deaths and destruction in the anti-Muslim violence that swept the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state in 2002.
After running from pillar to post for justice, Sheikh's brother complained to the Supreme Court. The apex court forced the Gujarat government to conduct an impartial investigation which also proved that he had no terrorist links. Indian media reports, however, said Sheikh was an extortionist and had a few criminal cases against him. Apparently, he tried to extort money from a rich Hindu businessman with BJP links. The police obliged the wealthy marble trader by gunning down Sheikh claiming that he was a terrorist on a mission to kill Modi.
The police version had many buyers because Modi was vehemently criticised for turning a blind eye to the 2002 pogrom against Muslims.
But Sheikh's brother, Rubabuddin Sheikh, threw a spanner in the works of the police. After the Gujarat government confessed killing Sheikh, he filed a petition demanding that the administration produce his missing sister-in-law, which led to the explosive admission that Sheikh's wife was also eliminated to silence a witness.
K. P. S. Gill, former police chief of Punjab who gave his boys a free hand to crush the armed Sikh campaign for an independent Khalistan, accuses the Indian media of hounding 'patriotic' policemen.
"There are bound to be some mistakes when you deal with terrorists and organised crime", said Gill.
E. N. Rammohun, former BSF Director-General, says: "In Kashmir, only a Truth and Reconciliation Commission like South Africa's after the end of apartheid, will enable India to make peace with the Kashmiri people."
But Harsh Mander, a bureaucrat who quit the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in a huff after the 2002 Gujarat carnage and now runs a non-governmental organisation Aman Biradri, or Peace Brotherhood, laments that the current wave of outrage will taper off because extra-judicial killings have somehow gained social acceptance in the country.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/Display...ontinent_May822.xml§ion=subcontinent&col=
