Lucknow: Amid the Opposition’s uproar over ‘encounter’ killings in Uttar Pradesh, activist and retired IPS officer Amitabh Thakur has written to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), alleging discrepancies in the sequence of events as narrated by the state police and pictures from the spot in Jhansi where Atiq Ahmed’s son Asad and his accomplice Ghulam Mohammed were killed in a ‘police encounter’ Thursday.
The UP special task force (STF) had termed it “one-of-the-few operations” in which it used all its might to trace the accused. Three separate First Information Reports (FIRs) were lodged by DSP (STF) Navendu Kumar against Asad and Ghulam late Thursday night.
While police have filed one detailed FIR against Asad and Ghulam, two separate identical FIRs were also filed against each of the two under sections of the Arms Act owing to the recovery of pistols from them at the time of the ‘encounter’. ThePrint has a copy of all the FIRs.
Pointing out 12 points of “suspicion” and discrepancies in the FIRs and the photographs of the incident that have emerged, Thakur has also called for a thorough probe into the alleged encounters. ThePrint has a copy of his letter to the NHRC.
In his complaint to the human rights body, Thakur said suspicion arises from a comparison between the FIRs, and the photographs of the deceased released by the STF. “As per established law, nobody is allowed to kill someone and anyone can be killed only through legal procedure. Nobody can be killed merely calling him a heinous criminal. If the situation is not controlled, the entire system will become anarchic,” he wrote.
He said while the police claimed that the accused were hiding in the bushes, the site was an open spot without any bushes, contrary to the description in the FIR. “There is no evidence of slipping or sliding and there are no dust marks on the tyres of the bike found at the spot,” he wrote.
Thakur also questioned the timing of the incident, stating that while the FIR says the accused had shown signs of life at the time of being transported to a hospital in the afternoon, TV channels “had already broken the news of their deaths at 1 pm”.
Killed on the spot or died in hospital?
Thakur contended that while the FIR claimed both Asad and Ghulam were alive when the encounter ended, and were writhing in pain, “it is clear from pictures that Asad and Ghulam had been killed at the spot and the pictures were of dead bodies and not of two persons writhing in pain”.
“In one photo, Asad’s body can be seen lying below the handle of a bike which is not possible in any situation because if a person falls, he cannot land under a bike which is already lying on the ground…his body should be above the handle… The way Asad’s body has been shown…gives rise to suspicion,” he added.
Thakur further said that in the same photo, the way a pistol is shown in Asad’s closed fist, it doesn’t seem to be in consonance with the medico-legal principles according to which, as soon as someone collapses, “the pistol will fall from his hand”.
“An empty pistol lying next to Asad and a shadow visible in one of the pictures raises question and in another photograph, while Ghulam is visible in the picture, the pistol is missing which shows that several attempts were made to create the situation and STF persons clicked pictures repeatedly,” he wrote.
Likewise, he said, the manner in which Ghulam could be seen holding a pistol was also “against medico-legal principles”.
He added that the position of Ghulam’s chappals is different in different pictures. Speaking to media persons Friday, Dr Narendra Tomar, managing director of Jhansi medical college had said that police brought the duo in two separate ambulances at 1.20 pm Thursday.
“We were not aware of the identities. Their pulse, oxygen saturation, respiratory movement were not there when they were brought and they were totally unconscious. A cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) , ECG was conducted and they were medically examined and declared fatal,” he said.
Dr Tomar had further stated that Asad was shot twice and Ghulam had been shot at once in a vital organ that led to his demise. “He (Ghulam) had fresh blood in the back. Rigor mortis had not set in by that time which means they died about one-two hours before they arrived. An X-ray was conducted on the whole body,” he had added.
Rigor mortis, a postmortem change resulting in stiffening of body muscles, helps medical professionals estimate the time of death and also ascertain whether the body was moved.
What FIRs against Asad, Ghulam say
In the first FIR lodged against both Asad and Mohammed Ghulam in Badagaon police station of Jhansi at 11.22 pm Thursday, the DSP has alleged that they had information about Guddu Muslim (one of the shooters in the Umesh Pal case) having stayed at the house of one Satish Pandey in Parichha power plant area but he fled before police arrived.
“Information was received about the presence of the accused Asad and Ghulam in Jhansi and its suburbs after which 13 STF officers in two teams travelled to the area in two vehicles,” it said.
It added that an informer told the team that Asad and Ghulam were spotted in the Chirgaon area late Wednesday and were likely to still be there. They were then informed that the duo had moved towards Parichha from Chirgaon on a red-black Discover bike with a missing number plate.
The FIR said the duo were sighted 100 metres before Parichha and sped away on a kutcha road when the police tried to stop them. “Both the teams surrounded the accused, warning them and tried to stop them… At about 1.5 metres from the spot, the bike slipped and fell in the bushes and both started firing at the policemen after hurling abuses at us,” it said.
“…considering the indiscriminate firing from their side, the police team resorted to firing in self defence,” said the FIR lodged under IPC section 307 (attempt to murder).
It added that the team approached the accused when the latter stopped firing and “saw that they were writhing in pain”. And that the men were “identified as Asad Ahmed and Mohammed Ghulam from the photographs which had gone viral on media channels”.
“Since there were signs of life in both the accused,” the FIR said, they were taken to a hospital in two separate ambulances. “Later, when we went to the Jhansi medical college to check, they were dead,” it added.
Speaking to media persons Friday, ADG (STF) Amitabh Yash defended the encounters, and said the agency had put all its might into cracking the case and had engaged several of its teams to track the accused. Elaborating on the STF’s probe, he said that “it was a one-of-the-few operations wherein the STF had thrust its entire might and before this, (such an action) has taken place in very few cases”.
“It was an important case because the murder committed by the mafia was an attack on the roots of the criminal justice system because if witnesses are killed like this, no person will stand to testify and the entire criminal justice system will collapse,” he said.
BJP leader Umesh Pal was one of the witnesses in the daylight murder of BSP MLA Raju Pal who was allegedly gunned down by Atiq’s men on 25 January 2005. However, Umesh had turned hostile in court during his testimony and was later dropped from the list of the witnesses after the CBI took over the probe in 2016 and found him “unreliable”.
On 24 February this year, Umesh Pal was shot dead in broad daylight after at least seven persons arrived in multiple vehicles and opened fire at him.
Opposition attacks
Meanwhile, the Opposition continues to raise the issue of “fake encounters” and custodial deaths in UP. Speaking to the media in Indore Friday, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said Uttar Pradesh was number one in fake encounters and custodial deaths, and had received several notices from the NHRC in this regard.
Citing previous ‘encounter killings’ in the state, he said, “We believe in the court. A court can take suo motu cognizance and families should also approach the court in case they feel that an encounter is fake.”
"उत्तर प्रदेश फेक एनकाउंटर में नंबर वन है, कस्टोडियल डेथ में नंबर वन है। नेशनल ह्यूमन राइट ने नोटिस दी हैं।"
– माननीय राष्ट्रीय अध्यक्ष श्री अखिलेश यादव जी, इंदौर pic.twitter.com/TMQgglcZVH
— Samajwadi Party (@samajwadiparty) April 14, 2023
He further dared the government to shoot the persons involved in the death of a mother-daughter duo in Kanpur. “You are looking at caste and religion here…in which direction, are you taking the country? They want to divide the society and rule,” he said.
Pramila Dixit (44) and her 20-year-old daughter Neha were charred to death shortly after a fire broke out in their shanty where a team of local administration and Kanpur police had reached in Mandauli village of Kanpur Dehat following an order from the Maitha SDM in February this year.
The deaths had stirred a political row even as the Kanpur police booked 12 named persons, including the local SDM, SHO, and other officials, and 12-15 cops for murder in connection with the incident, according to media reports.
Meanwhile, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi said in Hyderabad Friday that though he didn’t support any mafia or criminal, he was always opposed to encounters. “What is the difference between law enforcement agencies and criminals then?” he asked.
Reports also quoted him as asking, “Was the killer of Mahatma Gandhi killed or sent to jail? Did you shoot him in an encounter?”
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
Also read: Why police think Atiq Ahmed went after Umesh Pal — ‘backstabbing’, property rivalry, court cases