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The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its judgement on a plea seeking an investigation into rampant “fake encounters” by the Assam Police, Live Law reported.
The petitioner, Arif Jwaddar, claimed that over 80 such staged gunfights have taken place in the state since May 2021, when Bharatiya Janata Party leader Himanta Biswa Sarma became the chief minister.
Jwaddar added that 28 people were killed and 48 were injured in “fake encounters” since May 2021.
Jwaddar approached the Supreme Court after the Gauhati High Court rejected his public interest litigation seeking an inquiry into the matter.
On Tuesday, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, said that 16 guidelines prescribed in a 2014 Supreme Court judgment on police encounter deaths had been “rampantly violated” in Assam, The Hindu reported.
The judgement referred to was pronounced in People’s Union of Civil Liberties versus State of Maharashtra and ruled that “killings in police encounters require independent investigation” to restore public faith in the police.
Bhushan also pointed out that in the cases in Assam, first information reports were filed against the victims and not the police officers involved. He referred to statements from victims who were shot in the legs by an “encounter specialist”.
“The incidents were not random,” Bhushan said. “They showed a general pattern.”
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Assam, agreed that the 2014 judgement was binding on the state but contended that it had been followed “to the hilt”. He also refuted Bhushan’s position that the guidelines required police officials to be named as perpetrators.
“It nowhere says that whenever there is a clash between the terrorist or criminal gang and the police, the police will have to necessarily be an accused,” Mehta said. “If that is the law, nobody will be able to protect the citizens of this country. If I as a police officer feel that if I fire a bullet, then I will be the accused next day, I will choose not to fire the bullet. And that probably is the purpose of this petition!”
In an earlier hearing of the case in October, the Supreme Court had questioned whether the Assam Police was targeting a particular community in the state through these alleged staged gunfights.
On February 4, the Supreme Court said it could not examine the merits of the alleged police encounters but would review whether its guidelines on extra-judicial killings had been followed by the authorities.
Since Sarma became the chief minister of Assam, the state has seen several police shootings, Scroll has reported. Many of those injured and killed belong to the state’s ethnic and religious minorities. The police have defended their actions, claiming that the victims were gunned down as they tried to flee or attack officials.
In February 2023, the Assam Human Rights Commission found two officials guilty of killing a man accused of theft in a staged gunfight in 2021.
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