This euphemism is a phrase widely used by the Bombay (Maharastra) Police to describe extra-judicial police-sanctioned assassinations of notorious gangland killers.
Reputed to be the original brainchild of ex Police Commissioner Julius Ribeiro as a means to decimate Bombay's once powerful organized criminal gangs, it proved so effective that not only helped to set Ribeiro for national fame, but was seen as such a useful tool that all sucessive Bombay CPs carried on with it. A dreaded criminal is identified and a police "party" is sent after him. Usually this person has committed several murders but escaped justice in the courts either due to a good lawyer or due to the police's own shoddy investigation and presentation of evidence. The posse gets information from their confidential informants that he is expected at such and such place at a given time. He is surrounded and shot in cold blood even when he presents no danger to them. His revolver is put in his dead hands to show that he tried to resist, often after the police shoot off some rounds from it. If he had no sidearm, the police use one that they have brought for the purpose. Encounter specialists like Inspectors Daya Naik and Pradip Sharma are known to have knocked off more than a hundred such criminals in this manner. Unfortunately, they ultimately face allegations of doing the work of one rival gang against the other, have accumulated huge wealth from such corruption and are arrested and tried. This taint of evil that such activity engenders seems to affect other police forces too. Todays news in Canada mentions about a Hells Angels biker gang police specialist tipping off the hoods about a Montreal surete de Quebec investigation. As the crime in Goa increases and the police are unable to tackle it, all it takes is the transfer of one bold and upright IPS officer to bring encounter killings to Goa. Roland Toronto. Sent from Samsung Mobile
