Human rights violation with another fake encounter

Aug 16: Have you seen the footage in a television news channel in which Uttar Pradesh state police after chasing a criminal killed him in broad day light when he was about to surrender? It is really a serious case of violation of right to life and as a result the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued notice to the state government.

Soon after the Chief Minister of the state Mayawati has directed the Crime Branch CID to probe over the matter after seeing the video footage by a private news channel on Tuesday night.

The video footage showed a local criminal named Pintu Mishra of Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh was gun down by police when he wanted to surrender. This incident is almost a year old as it took place on Sep 18 of 2006.

As the video footage is just released it is not understandable why and who recorded the incident. Meanwhile, the state DIG Vikram Singh termed it as a serious case of human rights violation and a clear cut murder. The police must allow the criminals to surrender, he added.

These days fake encounter and custodial killing or extra judicial killing is getting common by security forces in several parts of the country. The exact number of fake encounter is not accessible as people went missing in various states of the country including Punjab, Jammu Kashmir, and recent incident in Gujarat in the name of terrorism or political rivalries. Even police officials do admit such cases but termed those as isolation.

The reports of Asia Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) talks about nearly 10 extra judicial killings in the state of Uttar Pradesh only in the year 2006 in which some of the cases are termed as suicide by police department though those were clear cut murder by our respected police officers. It is really shame for a democracy where instead of safeguarding the law and order our police officers torture and kill innocent people for name and fame.

Though this incident shows that Pintu Mishra was a criminal but the recent fake encounter cases show how brutal and irresponsible police could be. Such incidents again raise the issue of police reforms that is the exact need of the hour as India a day before celebrated its 60 th anniversary of Independence Day.