EDITORIAL
We appreciate and welcome this editorial: IHRO
Faking encounters
Rogue cops must be punished
Fake police encounters are the most abhorrent legacy of terrorism in Punjab.
The same is true of Jammu and Kashmir and several other states as well. Every
such killing of an innocent person, branded a terrorist, has encouraged the
killer cops to dispense with renewed vengeance this rough and ready brand of
justice, which in reality is an extreme form of injustice. So many dark secrets
have been swept under the proverbial carpet that it now looks like a tent of
skeletons. Mercifully, uncomfortable questions have come to be asked by the
courts. That is why three IPS officers have been arrested by the Gujarat Police
on a charge of murder for their alleged role in the death of a man in a fake
encounter near Ahmedabad in 2005. Sheikh Sohrabuddin Sheikh was done to death
and wrongly described as a Lashkar-e-Toiba operative targeting Gujarat Chief
Minister Narendra Modi. The so-called encounter was so blatant that the
government had to admit that it was fake and it disowned the police officers —
Inspector-General (border range) D.G. Vanzara, Superintendent of Police
Rajkumar Pandayan of the state intelligence wing, and M.N. Dinesh, SP of
Rajasthan's Alwar district. Vanzara was chief of the anti-terrorist squad at
the time of the Sheikh's killing while Pandayan was his deputy.
IPS officers constitute the steel-frame of the police structure. They are
supposed to be keepers of the force's morality and integrity. But, in reality,
they kowtow to the political masters by bending all rules. The abhorrent
practice of faking encounters started as an extra-judicial method of
eliminating terrorists who could not be controlled through legal methods. It
soon degenerated into the cold-blooded murder of even innocents, either to
please the bosses or to get rewards. Even Army men have been found to be
involved in concocting such stories.
India has had to pay a heavy price for this horror. The country's reputation
has been compromised. The common man has lost faith in the security agencies
and junior functionaries have started emulating their seniors. Such killers in
uniform are a disgrace and must be weeded out ruthlessly and given the severest
punishment. If it is wrong on the part of criminals to target innocents, it is
a hundred times more so in the case of government servants.
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