Explore Business Standard
Fake Encounters
The Supreme Court was on Tuesday informed by the Assam government that the 2014 guidelines for investigating police encounters were duly followed in the state and unnecessary targeting of security forces was demoralising. Following the submission, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh reserved the verdict on a plea seeking an independent investigation over 171 alleged fake police encounters in Assam between May, 2021 and August, 2022. Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, representing the Assam government, said the Supreme Court's guidelines for the investigation of police encounters in the 2014 case of PUCL v. Maharashtra were being "followed to the hilt". Mehta added, "All the necessary protocols are followed and safeguards taken. If they (security personnel) are guilty, they need to be punished but if they are not guilty, then they need to be protected by the state. Unnecessary targeting may have a demoralising effect on security forces especially the conditions they have
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said questions have been raised over "fake" encounters in Uttar Pradesh and the BJP-ruled state has received maximum NHRC notices on such actions, remarks coming in the backdrop of death of gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad's son Asad in a gunfight. The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister also took a jibe at his successor Yogi Adityanath over his "will reduce mafia to dust" comments made in the Assembly, saying those who mouth such "filmi dialogue" have no faith in the Constitution. Gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad's son Asad and an accomplice, both wanted in the Umesh Pal murder case, were shot dead in an exchange of fire with the Uttar Pradesh Police near Jhansi on Thursday, officials said in Lucknow. The alleged encounter took place apparently at the time Ahmad, a former SP legislator, was in a Prayagraj court, where he was presented before the Chief Judicial Magistrate in connection with the same murder. Asked about the gunfight,
PDP president Mehbooba Mufti Monday welcomed an Army court's decision to recommend life imprisonment for a captain of the force in connection with the killing of three labourers in a "staged" encounter in Amshipura area of Shopian district in 2020. She expressed hope that an impartial probe would also be ordered into the Lawaypora and Hyderpora encounters that took place in 2021. Retweeting a news report on the development, the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said, "Recommended punishment of life imprisonment for Captain involved in Amshipora fake encounter is a welcome step towards creating accountability in such cases. Hope an impartial probe is also ordered in Lawapora and Hyderpora encounters to prevent the repetition of such ghastly incidents (sic)." Completing general court-martial proceedings in less than a year, an Army court has recommended life imprisonment for a captain in connection with the killing of three men in a "staged" encounter in Amshipura in south Kashm
The Allahabad High Court has directed the senior superintendent of police (SSP), Jhansi to ensure that the FIR of a petitioner, whose husband was killed in a police encounter in 2019, be lodged with her version that the man was killed in a fake encounter. The court has directed the SSP and the station house officers (SHOs) of the Gursahay and Moth police stations in Jhansi to ensure that the FIR of petitioner Shivangi Yadav be lodged with her version that her husband was killed in a fake police encounter. Passing the order, the court directed that a copy of the FIR be placed before it on September 29, the next date of hearing in the matter. The petitioner had requested the court to order the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to conduct the probe into the killing of her husband, Pushpendra Singh Yadav, on October 5, 2019 in a fake encounter under the Moth police station. In its order passed on Monday, the bench comprising justices Suneet Kumar and Syed Waiz Mian observ