India Questioning ‘Encounter’ Executions

By Megan E. Dodge
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

AHMEDABAD, India– In cities across India that have been struggling with organized crime groups, the response of crime fighters has been to have officers designated to killing these gang figures – all in the name of justice. These officers, known as encounter specialists, gained reputations as heroes, and became known as local celebrities by the number and particular gangsters they had killed.

Although such practice has occurred for decades, Indians have become increasingly wary of police officers taking on the role as judge, jury and executioner. According to the National Human Rights Commission, 346 people have been killed since 2006 in what seem to have been extrajudicial police killing, though this figure is estimated to be a low approximation.

A sensationalist account in June 2004 shed light on the issue when four Muslims were pummeled with bullets when intelligence reports had identified the four as terrorism suspects. The group had bomb-making chemicals and a suitcase full of money in the trunk of their car. It was believed they planned to assassinate the chief minister of India’s richest state when police intercepted.

Jay Narayan Vyas, a spokesman for the state government, said that the four people killed had been identified by the central government as terrorism suspects. A government intelligence report said that the four were possible terrorism suspects, but the central government has said that these were merely suspicions and could not justify the killings.

As suspicion mounted, forensic evidence revealed that the four were actually shot at point-blank range, and earlier than the reports given by the police. Civilian animosity then began to rise against “encounter killings.”

In many of these killings, investigations have found, the motive was not vigilante justice. The police often staged such killings for personal gain: eliminating a rival of a powerful politician in the hopes of a big promotion; killing a crime boss on behalf of one of his rivals; settling scores between businessmen. According to the New York Times, lawyers had known for years that something strange was happening in the Gujarat police force and that the killings of terrorism suspects were dubious. Such acts are dubbed, ‘fake encounters.’

Reports continue to show that these human rights violations and fake encounter killings are still being carried out by security forces in India. In New Delhi, political parties, with the exception of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), criticized the Gujarat government in a recent meeting and demanded that Chief Minister Narendra Modi resign over the June 2004 killing of Mumbai collegian, Ishrat Jahan, which created mass public awareness as a exploitive fake encounter. Governmental and official tension remains amidst human rights activists’ continued beckoning for the cessation of this crude ‘justice’ tactic.

For more information, please see:

New York Times – Questions on Executions Mount in India – October 3, 2009

Gulfnews: Modi government criticised for fake encounter killings – October 4, 2009

The Times of India – Another ‘fake’ encounter in Manipur – Septmber 11, 2009

Asia Human Rights Commission – INDIA: Encounter killing and custodial torture, a disgrace for the nation – September 14, 2009 

South Asia Citizens Web – ’Encounter Killings’ and the Question of Justice in India – September 6, 2009

Author: Impunity Watch Archive