After every ‘encounter’ — there had been 26 in Tamil Nadu since 2006 — a couple of policemen get admitted to hospital with bullet injuries. For officially, an encounter, which is nothing but a euphemism for bumping off alleged criminals, happens when the life of police personnel was under threat. Normally, such acts, done in blatant violation of laws, hardly evoke any public protest, though a civilised society is expected to react to such incidents.
But total approval by the local people to the killing of driver Mohanraj of Coimbatore, who was accused of odious crimes like kidnapping, raping and killing two children, is a reaction that should shame any law-abiding citizen. For hailing the police as heroes for an extra-judicial killing only points to a dangerous trend in society and cannot be a solution to social problems.
In such a context, ‘encounters’ raise a bigger question as to why it happens again and again in a State where the police force claims that is next to only to Scotland Yard in term of efficiency.
“Taking the law into their own hands and justifying the fake encounter by invoking the values of right or wrong according the wishes of ‘political class’ is nothing but private vigilantism,’’ says V Suresh, State president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). It is a dangerous trend as it promotes a culture of violence among the people, says G Haragopal, human rights activist and retired political science professor of the University of Hyderabad.
Rights activists also point to a slew of holes in the police theory on the killing of Mohanraj on November 9. To justify their killing, the police claim that they were following the Supreme Court guidelines, which are never looked into otherwise, in taking him out without handcuffs, says Suresh. S V Rajadurai, writer and civil rights activist, raises various questions on the police claim on opening fire in self-defence. Why should the police take Mohanraj in a separate van to identify the place where the children were killed? If the accused was kept in the back seat of the police van, how could Mohanraj overpower the police force and snatch a pistol from a Sub-Inspector and threaten the van driver?
How could a first time offender overpower the police and pick the pistol from the leather pouch of the police officer and shoot two sub-inspectors? Moreover, why did the injured policemen get admitted to a private hospital, which is very far from the incident spot, while the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital is located very close to the so called encounter spot?
Lawyer Pa Pugelenthi, president of the Tamil People Rights Movement, wonders why the investigation officer of the case was absent on that day. A thorough inquiry will prove that it was a fake ‘encounter’, says Pugelenthi, who has filed a case against the killing of Mohanraj and has earned the wrath of some — posters have been put up in Coimbatore against the lawyers questioning the genuineness of the encounter.
Breach of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) guidelines is common in all extra-judicial killings by the police, points out C J Rajan, director of People’s Watch, Human Rights Programme, Tamil Nadu.
According to the NHRC guidelines/procedures to be followed in cases of deaths caused in police action (1994), if a person is killed in the police encounter, a separate First Information Report (FIR) on murder charges (302 of IPC) should be filed against the police officers involved in the encounter and an independent agency like State CB-CID should make an investigation on the case. Besides, the postmortem of the victim should be done in the presence of family members of the victims and it should be videotaped.
All the investigation details should be submitted to the NHRC within six months of the encounters, says I Robert Chandra Kumar, an advocate in Madurai. Chandra Kumar has filed a case in the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court to direct the CBI to club the 26 ‘extra-judicial killing’ carried out by the police in the last four years, as a single case and to investigate whether the Tamil Nadu police have followed the NHRC guidelines on all these killings.
People’s Watch also filed a similar petition in the Madras High Court demanding an investigation by a retired judge. But both cases are pending. Interestingly, the former chief secretary of Tamil Nadu, K S Sripathi, had sent a directive to the Director General of Police and Additional Director General of Police, Prisons, in July 2007 asking them to strictly follow the NHRC guidelines in cases of deaths caused in police action. “But in none of the cases, the NHRC guidelines were followed in full spirit,’’ says Rajan.
For instance, Mariamma, mother of ‘Vellai’ Ravi, who was killed in the police encounter in August 2008, has sought the filing of a case of murder against Suburban Commissioner S R Jangid. But so far, the police have not filed any case against him, says R Kamala, wife of Ravi. In the encounter of ‘Kalmandayan’ Murugan on February 16, 2010 in Madurai, too, Murugan’s mother, Kuruvammal, filed a police complaint but no action has been taken against the police officers.
Thiyagu, general secretary, Tamil National Liberation Movement traces police encounters to late 1980s. “When I was active in the CPI-ML movement, the police had killed many naxal leaders like Balan and more than 40 innocent people in Dharamapurai and North Arcot districts in the 1980s, but none of the police officers were punished,’’ he says adding that they were honoured with medals instead.
Worried about the prevailing trend in Tamil Nadu, retired DGP Lakshmi Narayanan said that during his 30 years of service, even when he was working in the insurgency-inflicted areas like Nagaland, he never resorted to firing. “It was not the case with me alone. Most police officers of 1970s respected the rule of law and followed it in full spirit,” he says, adding that he was also worried about the poor functioning of judiciary, which was the root cause for creating frustration among the public.
Locating the issue in context, Haragopal says that there is no doubt that over the years, the criminal jurisprudence system has crippled, which resulted in the judiciary taking a long time to deliver justice. And on the other hand, the post-liberalisation era saw a nexus between the mafia, the political parties and the police getting strengthened and in turn, to an increase in crime in major cities across the country.
As people are frustrated with the increase in crime and a delay in the delivery of justice, they tend to feel relieved if anti-social elements are eliminated, he says. But they need to understand that the police, instead of striking at the root of the problem, are using encounters to hide its failure. If the encounter culture is allowed to flourish, aided by the trial by media, it will only erode the very basic fabric of the democracy, Haragopal says.
“Perpetuating a culture of handing out punishment like life for life through retributive justice by state machinery would only increase the blood thirst among the people,” he says. The crisis in the criminal jurisprudence system comes handy for the ruling political class, which gains political mileage through encounters, as it happened in the case of Venkatesh Panniyar of Thoothukudi, says T S S Mani of PUCL. The same way in which the Pannaiyar’s wife V Radhika Selvi was made even a Central minister after the encounter to garner the local community vote then, the killing of Mohanraj is aimed at harvesting votes in Coimbatore, says Mani, suggesting that the killing of Mohanraj was aimed at pleasing the affluent North Indian community in Coimbatore and surrounding areas.
Since, it seems like a vicious circle, there can be no alternative to following the rule of law in true spirit. For ‘encounters’ can help the State to even muffle voices against its own misdeeds, too.