Spare a thought for kin of encounter victims

Earlier  the  term, encounter killings, seemed reserved only for those living in the  so called conflict  zones of  the country, but today  the strategy is being adopted by state to do away with just about  any ‘suspicious’ looking human form coming in way. Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf Ahmed’s blatant killings out in the open shook many. Bringing to the fore the basic vital – Are all criminals going to be killed in the open, gunned down  in broad daylight? These killings so very blatantly targeted and one-sided that they go beyond the so called encounters!  In fact, another vital that comes to the fore is the fact the Uttar Pradesh sarkar recently stated that more than 10,000 encounters have taken place between police and criminals in the state in the past six years, during which 63 criminals had been killed while a brave cop had also been martyred, according to the data released by the government. To quote the details from one of the news reports: “The UP Police has conducted 10713 encounters since 2017 of which the highest 3152 were conducted by the Meerut police, followed by the Agra Police, which carried out 1844 encounters in which 4654 criminals were arrested while 14 dreaded criminals were killed and 55 cops were injured, and Bareilly where as many as 1497 encounters were conducted in which 3410 criminals were arrested while 7 died. During the encounters in Bareilly, 437 criminals were injured. In these operations, 296 brave police personnel were injured while 1 was martyred.”  Shouldn’t the backgrounders to those done away with in the encounters get investigated by an independent commission? Yes, it gets significant to have this done. Earlier  the  very term – encounter killings- seemed reserved only for those living in the  so called conflict  zones of  the country  or  for  those  fitted in the underworld, but today  the State seems to have  adopted  this strategy to  do away with just about  any ‘suspicious’ looking human form coming  in way.  Victims could range from political opponents to those who are not part and parcel of the very nexus. The former  encounter-specialist of  Gujarat,  D.G. Vanzara’s resignation letter  published in cop  RB  Sreekumar’s  book-  Gujarat  Behind the  Curtain, relays volumes . To  quote from this book – “DIG  D.G. Vanzara, jailed since  April 2007 for the alleged  guilt of committing fake encounters, in his  resignation letter to the government of Gujarat, dated  1st September 2013, captioned –‘Tendering of  resignation from my service with renunciation of all post- retirement  benefits’ wrote ‘Gujarat  CID / Union CBI had arrested me and my officers in  different encounter cases,  holding us to be  responsible for carrying out alleged  fake  encounters, if that  is true,  then the CBI  investigating  officers of all the  4  encounter cases of  Sohrabuddin, Tulsi  Ram,  Sadiq  Jamal and  Ishrat  Jahan have to arrest the  policy  formulators also, as we, being  field  officers have  simply  implemented the conscious  policy of this  government, which was  inspiring , guiding and  monitoring our  actions from very  close  quarters. By this  reasoning, I am of the  firm opinion  that the place of  this  government, instead  of  being in  Gandhinagar,  should either  be  in Taloja  Central Prison at  Navi  Mumbai  or in the  Sabarmati  Central Jail in  Ahmedabad.’  ”