Say what you will about India’s police forces, but there is no doubt that our criminals possess almost supernatural powers that leave them struggling to cope. Even Lex Luthor and Penguin cannot manage to do what our homegrown criminals do; especially when they are gagged and bound in police custody.
Just ask the cops about it!
Consider the case of Akshay Shinde who was killed by the police on Monday in Thane, Maharashtra. According to the police, Shinde, a contract sweeper at a school in Badlapur in Thane district, had sexually assaulted two young girls. He was arrested on 17 August 2024, five days after the alleged sexual assault, and on Monday he was handcuffed, put into a police vehicle, and taken for further investigation. Even though he was handcuffed and surrounded by armed policemen, Shinde managed to snatch the gun of one of his escort officers inside the van. Shocked by his remarkable ability to function while handcuffed and heavily outnumbered, the police had no alternative but to kill him.
If you follow the exploits of India’s criminals (and police forces), this incident will not surprise you. In July 2020, the gangster Vikas Dubey was being transported in a van by a heavily armed Uttar Pradesh police party when he reportedly grabbed a weapon from one of his police escorts and opened fire. Naturally, he left the poor policemen with no option but to shoot him dead.
As you can tell, India’s criminal masterminds are experts at seizing weapons from massively armed police personnel even when they are surrounded by them. What’s more, they manage to do it when they are handcuffed. Eventually, of course, it all goes wrong for the criminals because the police then have no alternative but to kill them.
That this same script is played out again and again —the police don’t even bother to think up new cover stories—tells us two things.
The first is that there is very little accountability over police actions unless so-called ‘encounter cops’ (it is suggested that an ‘encounter cop’ killed Shinde) really overdo it. Instead, in many cases, the police win widespread public acclaim for their killings, and when enquiries are instituted (there was one about the Dubey case), they often result in the exoneration of all the cops.
The second is that there is enormous public support for encounters. For instance, in UP, where the chief minister is often praised for his ability to control the law and order situation, a surprisingly large number of killings by the police take place regularly. And nobody really seems to care too much.
Also read: Let’s push for ‘One Nation, One Police’ too, along with ‘One Nation, One Election’
The same script, all over again
Why do extra-judicial killings have so much public support? Why does the script in which blindfolded and handcuffed criminals suddenly develop superpowers inside police vehicles and seize guns from their captors play out again and again?
There are several reasons. One of them is that people don’t believe that criminals can ever be punished because our criminal justice system is broken. It takes years for a case to come to trial. The accused get bail and once out of jail, they threaten witnesses. Cops and judges are not immune to bribes. So the guilty rarely get punished.
Moreover, many of those killed in such encounters are deeply unsympathetic characters. Dubey was a hard-core gangster with few redeeming qualities. Whoever sexually assaulted the young girls in the school toilet in Badlapur was clearly a sicko and a pervert. If Shinde had really been behind the assaults as the police claimed, then most people reckoned that it was easier to bump him off than waste time and public money on a trial and a prison sentence.
For many years now, I have been writing about encounters again and again. I understand the public mood. I understand why the police get away with these killings time after time. Of course I have a problem with the ethics and morality of such encounters. Like everyone who respects the Constitution, it is difficult for me to support straight-out executions. But I have come to recognise that mine is a minority view.
The general attitude to encounters is that only criminals are bumped off. We know this because it is what the police tell us. And yes, there is no doubt that people like Dubey were extremely unsavoury individuals.
But here’s the problem: How do we know that all of those who perish in such encounters were actually criminals, let alone guilty of that particular offence? The police tell us that we must take their word for it. But given what we know about India’s police forces and their levels of integrity, should we be so ready to give them the power of life and death over citizens? Should we necessarily accept everything they say at face value?
It only matters when it’s the middle class
It is significant that most of those killed in staged encounters tend to be members of the working class, underclass, and drawn from India’s lower castes and minorities.
The moment the principle of letting the police kill anyone they claim is guilty is extended to the killing of middle-class people, the public response is suddenly very different.
Some of you with long memories may remember the Barakhamba Road encounter in 1997. That was when the Delhi Police opened fire on a car on a road in Central Delhi. They believed that the car was occupied by a gangster. It turned out that they had found the wrong car and that the people inside the vehicle were innocent.
At first, the cops brazened it out; they declared that they had been fired at and had only responded in self-defence. One policeman even claimed to have been shot from inside the car.
Eventually, the police’s lies were exposed because the victims were middle class and had friends, colleagues, and families who knew that they were not criminals. Middle-class outrage grew; there were protests about the murders of innocent people and the policemen involved were arrested, sent to trial, and eventually to jail.
But suppose it had not been middle-class victims in the car? Supposing it had been a rickshaw, not a car? Suppose it had been full of working-class passengers? Would we still have seen that same level of public outrage?
I think you know the answer to that one.
In the Badlapur case, there is no national outrage because the man who was shot was a sweeper. But was he really guilty? The Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturved has challenged the police version of events. The sexual assault took place on 12 August, but the FIR was only filed (with reluctance) on 16 August. Shinde was arrested a day later, but no CCTV footage was collected and the school authorities were not booked or regarded as liable. Chaturvedi says that this was because some of the school board’s members have links to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). After local protests about the manner in which the case was investigated grew, says Chaturvedi, the school’s office-bearers disappeared. And questions began to be asked about whether Shinde was really responsible for the assaults. That was when the police killed him.
I make no judgements about the case, especially as the matter has now become political. But the basic questions remain: Should we blindly support all encounters as we do at present? Should we take the line that all the people who are killed were unsavoury characters so who cares if they were murdered?
Or should we consider whether, by allowing the police to pick up and shoot pretty much who they want, we are making it easier for them to act as willing executioners on behalf of those in power?
These are important questions. But after raising this issue for over two decades now, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we don’t want the answers.
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist, and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)