India's police exposed as judge, jury, executioner

The image of India's police is at an all-time low after a confession by the Gujurat state government in the country's top court that security forces shot dead a Muslim civilian in a 'fake encounter' - or staged gun- battle. Staged killings by the police and military have come to light with alarming frequency in India. But never before had a state administration publicly conceded that it had blood on its hands. After admitting to the extra-judicial killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, the Hindu nationalist Gujarat government told supreme court judges this month that police also killed Sheikh's wife Kauser Bibi, who had witnessed her husband's execution by the anti-terrorist squad. Kauser, according to some reports, was also gang-raped and her corpse was burned to destroy evidence. The case of Sohrabuddin and Kauser has rattled authorities and prompted outrage among human rights groups and social commentators. Following the Gujurat case, courts in several states have reopened old cases, including in Indian-administered Kashmir, which has the worst human rights record. It is clear that police, paramilitaries and army personnel across India have been responsible for thousands of extra-judicial killings. The modus operandi is usually the same - fake encounters in which the authorities say they were forced to fire in self-defence, or to prevent suspects escaping. Significantly, the majority of victims are Muslim men in their 20s and 30s, shot dead by police or security forces who are officially secular but overwhelmingly Hindu. There have also been instances of police acting as contract killers in property or matrimonial disputes. Maoist rebels fighting for the landless poor or tribespeople are particular targets. 'Who has given policemen the licence to kill? Obviously the federal and state governments which condone extra-judicial killings, third degree methods and police excesses,' says analyst Praful Bidwai. 'Vigilante killings enjoy political backing. So only the judiciary can uphold the common man's right to life. Were it not for activist supreme court judges, the Gujarat government would never have owned up to its ghastly crimes.' In the wake of the Gujarat government's testimony, the alleged killers - three senior Indian Police Service officers and their four subordinates - were arrested. Some experts blame extra-judicial killings on India's cumbersome criminal justice system in which it takes decades to convict criminals, laws are tilted in favour of the accused and corrupt judges do not think twice before granting bail. It is hardly surprising, they say, that the police have become judge, jury and executioner. Police in Delhi and Mumbai have so-called 'encounter specialists' - officers unofficially assigned the task of liquidating criminals. Most are crack shots. Mumbai's Pradeep Sharma has the dubious distinction of killing more than a 100 people, while his protege, Daya Nayak, has 85 'successful encounters' under his belt and has even been immortalised in a Bollywood film. Other 'centurions' are Delhi's Rajbir Singh and Uttar Pradesh's Brij Lal. Mr Sharma told an interviewer that most deaths at his hands were accidents. 'When criminals on the run resist arrest, such encounters happen,' he said. 'It is more of an accident when we go to arrest criminals.' Sheikh was gunned down in November 2005 in the suburbs of Ahmedabad by the anti-terrorist squad which claimed he planned to assassinate chief minister Narendra Modi. Branding Sheikh an operative of the Islamic militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, the police said that he wanted to kill Mr Modi in revenge for the anti-Muslim violence that swept the state in 2002. The supreme court investigated after a complaint from Sheikh's brother Rubabuddin. The court forced the Gujarat government to conduct an impartial investigation of Sheikh's case, which proved he had no terrorist links. Indian media reports, however, said Sheikh had tried to extort money from a wealth marble trader with links to the Hindu nationalist BJP party which rules Gujurat, and it was the businessman who arranged his killing. The police version had many buyers because Mr Modi was vehemently criticised for turning a blind eye to the 2002 pogrom against Muslims. According to official figures, more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were shot, burnt and hacked to death though rights groups estimate the death toll to be more than 3,000. The Supreme Court slammed Mr Modi as a 'modern day Nero', for his inaction during the carnage. K. P. S. Gill, the former police chief of Punjab who gave his officers a free hand in crushing 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 Mr Gill. Other former senior officers say that extra-judicial killings must be stopped immediately. One of them, speaking on condition of anonymity, says that in states like Kashmir, it's not 'encounter specialists' but entire army regiments resorting to murder. According to his version, there is an unwritten rule that if one army or Border Security Force soldier is killed by militants, five Kashmiris are executed.