Abhay Kumar, Markandey Katju, and Subhashini Ali

Media Stoops to a New Low: Vikash Dubey Encounter Is Portrayed as “Instant Justice”

Abhay Kumar

While covering the encounter of the gangster Vikas Dubey by Uttar Pradesh (UP) police, the mainstream Indian media – particularly Hindi newspapers – appears to have condoned the extra-judicial killing. They have again failed to act as a defender of civil rights.

The diseased, Dubey’s, criminal life spanned 30 years. He has been accused of 62 criminal cases. The criminal charges against him include five cases of murder and eight cases of attempt to murder (8). Earlier, he has also been booked under the draconian UP Gangsters’ Act, Goonda Act, and the National Security Act. In 2001, he was accused of killing a state minister within a police station. A few days back he was arrested by Ujjain police (Madhya Pradesh) for killing eight policemen. Eventually, he was being brought to Kanpur by the U.P. police. Dubey was killed in a police encounter on the early Friday morning on his way from Ujjain to Kanpur.

The encounter of Vikash Dubey became the front-page story in most of the newspapers. Some newspapers wrote editorial on this incident. For example, Hindi daily Haribhoomi calls the encounter as “justice” given “on the spot”. Its front-page headline (New Delhi, July 11) reads “Justice onspot”.

Similarly, Dainik Bhaskar (New Delhi, July 11) portrays the encounter as “justice” (Encounter wala insaf). Another Hindi daily Rashtriya Sahara, too, appears to have upheld extra-judicial killing by the police. In its front-page headline, the Hindi daily writes “The end of Vikash Dubey comes instantly” (Vikash Dubey ka ant…turant). Dainik Jagran (National July 11) expresses the same spirit in its front-page headline: “Gangster Vikash Dubey killed in an encounter” (Muthbhed men gangster Vikas Debey ka kam tamam).

Can an encounter by the police, in any condition, be justified in a democracy? Who will deny that the job of the police is to investigate and produce an accused before a court? In a landmark judgment in 2012, the Supreme Court warned against the practice of encounter: “It is not the duty of the police officers to kill the accused merely because he is a dreaded criminal. Undoubtedly, the police have to arrest the accused and put them up for trial. This Court has repeatedly admonished trigger happy police personnel, who liquidate criminals and project the incident as an encounter. Such killings must be deprecated. They are not recognised as legal by our criminal justice administration system. They amount to State sponsored terrorism.”

Contrary to this, Hindi dailies seem to have condoned the encounters. They appear to have justified the extra-judicial killing. They seem to have favoured bypassing proper legal procedures, upholding “instant justice”. It is unfortunate for a democracy that a considerable section of media does not seem agitated against the practice of meting out justice as a kangaroo court does. Sadly, the above-mentioned newspapers do not make much effort to go beyond the police version. They have presented the chronology of events in such a way to make the readers believe that the police had no option but to kill the “gangster”.

For example, the narrative, peddled by Dainik Jagran (National), seems to be based on the notes taken from the police. As the newspaper writes, Vikash Dubey, accused of killing eight policemen, was being brought from Ujjain to Kanpur by the police. When the police vehicle overturned near Kanhaiya Lal Hospital in Sachendi (Kanpur), the police jawans got unconscious for a while. Meanwhile, Vikash Dubey snatched a pistol from a police inspector and tied to run away. When the police started chasing him, he fired at policemen. In retaliation, the police forces and members of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) killed him. Two jawans of the ATS also sustained injuries.

Such a narrative raises more questions than it answers. For example, when the police vehicle overturned, how could all the police jawans fell unconscious but Vikash Dubey did not? Was the security arrangement by the U.P. police appropriate, given the “dreaded criminal history” of Dubey? Is there any political pressure to silence him forever that outweighed the considerations of justice?

Instead of raising such questions, the tone of editorials, penned by several Hindi newspapers, has sounded apologist for the encounter. Rashtriya Sahara’s editorial (July 11) seems to be scolding those who have spoken against encounters. “But those who have condemned the role of the police and spoken loudly in favour of the judicial system, should know this fact that the accused of sixty serious cases has been enjoying impunity with the help of the same judicial system”. Rashtriya Sahara forgets to note that the police system is part of the judicial system.

The editorial of Dainik Jagran (National, July 11) says the same thing but says it indirectly. To justify the police action, the newspaper spends considerable energy on showing the loopholes of the judicial system. It argues that the judicial system of the country has been unable to punish the “dreaded” criminals. It even justifies the December 2019 Hyderabad police encounter of the alleged rapists. By such an act, it prepares the ground for the justification of the encounter. In our judicial system, the editorial argues, the pronouncement of sentences to criminals as well as the execution of the punishment is delayed.

Even if the editorial is justified in highlighting the limitation of the judiciary, it cannot be a ground for encounters. The primary job of the police, undoubtedly, is investigation. The police should collect evidence and put it before the court to decide. The Indian Constitution, similarly, talks about the separation of power. It opposes one authority encroaching upon the rights of other institutions. The principles of democracy are the rule of law and checks and balances.

However, the editorial of Haribhoomi does raise a few questions about the encounter. It is hopeful that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) would take “serious action” since the matter has been brought to its notice. Haribhoomi’s editorial says that even “anti-national” Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru were brought before the court. Punjab Kesari (July 11), in its editorial, has hinted at the political angle of the encounter with the following words: “With Vikas Dubey encounter by the police, several secrets (rahasya) got buried too”.

The editorial of The Indian Express (July 11) is vocal against the practice of encounter. It has criticized Yogi Adityanath Government too: “There is, also, a thriving “encounter culture” and police impunity in UP. It is sanctioned by the ruling regime and shored up by the apparent lack of popular outrage at extra-judicial killings, if not outright popular support for such summary executions, and impatience with fundamental principles of criminal justice. Indeed, in a country governed by the rule of law, the UP Police has much to explain. But if it resists and refuses — as police forces in these situations do — the court must step in”.

Urdu dailies, unlike most of Hindi dailies, raise several questions about the encounter. Inquilab (Mumbai, July 11), in its lead story, says “After dramatic arrest, suspicious encounter, several questions raised, inquiry demanded”. Siasat (Hyderabad, July 11), has the following headline: “The dramatic killing of the gangsters in UP, Vikash Dubey falls a new prey to ‘encounter’ state” (“‘Encounter state’ men Vikas Dubey naya shikar, U.P. men gangster ki dramai halakat”).

Note that several cases of encounters by the UP police have been reported in the recent past. According to a report of The Indian Express, “Dubey is the 119th accused to have been killed in what police called cross-firing since the Yogi Adityanath government took charge in March 2017”. Another story in The Wire claims that “in the last ten months, UP police has conducted four police encounters per day”. This all points to the prevalence of gross violation of the human rights in UP.

It is disappointing that several Hindi dailies, while reporting the encounter, have not pressed the demand for the police reforms (police sudhar). However, two retired senior police officers, writing opinion pieces, have expressed serious concerns over the criminalization of the politics and politicization of the police.

Writing a piece in Amar Ujala (New Delhi, July 11) titled “Crime, politics, and police” (Apradh, rajneeti aur police), Prakash Singh, former DGP, argues that the police should be kept immune from the political pressure. He rues that the erring officers, particularly those placed at higher level, go scot-free. He also tries to link the encounter with the problem of criminalization of politics. He cites the example of U.P. assembly (2017), saying that 36% of total MLAs has been charged with criminal cases. “If a large number of politicians with criminal backgrounds would enter the assembly, how will then the organized criminal gangs be checked?”, the former DIG Prakash Singh has asked.

Julio Ribeiro, former DGP of Gujarat and Punjab, has stressed the issue of “politicization of the police force” in his opinion piece in The Indian Express (July 11). In his article, he contends that the process of “political meddling” and “patronage afforded to corrupt officials” began in the 1980s. In this way, he tries to show a contrast between the period before the 1980s and after the 1980s. Showing a link between Friday’s encounter and the regime of Yogi Adityanath, Julio Ribeiro says that UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath “openly boasted of controlling crime by the encounter method”. In the end, Ribeiro concludes that by resorting to “shortcut”, such as encounter”, the UP chief minister is “ensuring the rise of enterprising policemen, who have become law breakers instead of law keepers”.

While Prakash Singh and Julio Ribeiro are correct to raise the issue of criminalization of politics and politicization of the police, the issue of police reforms cannot bypass the question of lack of diversity in the police department. The Indian police came into existence with the Police Act, 1861 during the British colonial rule. Before the Independence the Muslim representations in UP was not as bad as it is seen today. For example, the shares of Muslims in the police department were 50% cent (1921), 48% (1935-36), and 40% (1947). Unfortunately, the discriminatory policies of “secular” governments in post-Independence made Muslim representation in police fall drastically. The latest figure (2012) suggests that Muslim representation in the police is a mere 6.5%, half of their population. Similarly, the representation of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the police at an-all India level is also inadequate, i.e. 16.5%, while their population is 27%. The proper representation of Muslims, as well as other deprived communities, would make the police department more inclusive and less prejudiced against the weaker sections. (Courtesy: Countercurrents.org)

(Abhay Kumar is a Ph.D. from JNU. Earlier, he held a Post-Graduate Diploma in English Journalism from Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi and worked as a Delhi-based reporter with The Indian Express.)

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The Lawlessness of Encounter Killings

Markandey Katju

Note: This article was originally published on December 6, 2019, in The Wire; it is being republished by us in the context of the killing of gangster Vikas Dubey in an encounter by the UP police.

The Hyderabad ‘encounter’ killing by the police of the four alleged rapists of the veterinary doctor again raises questions about the validity of the tool of extrajudicial killings devised and resorted to by a large section of the Indian police. These were widely practised by the Maharashtra police to deal with the Mumbai underworld, by the Punjab police against Sikhs demanding Khalistan, and since 2017, after Yogi Adityanath became the chief minister, by the UP Police.

The truth is that such ‘encounters’ are, in fact, not encounters at all but cold-blooded murders by the police.

Article 21 of the constitution states:

“No person will be deprived of his life or personal liberty except in accordance with the procedure established by law “

This means that before depriving a person of his life, the state is required to put the person on trial in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). In the trial, the accused must be informed of the charges against him and then given an opportunity to defend himself (through counsel) and only then, if found guilty, can he be convicted and executed.

Fake ‘encounters’, on the other hand, completely sidestep and circumvent legal procedures, as it essentially means bumping someone off without a trial. Hence it is completely unconstitutional.

Policemen often justify this method by claiming that there are some dreaded criminals against whom no one would dare to give evidence, and so the only way to deal with them is through fake ‘encounters’. The problem, however, is that this is a dangerous philosophy and can be misused. For instance, if a businessman wants to eliminate a rival businessman he can give a bribe to some unscrupulous policemen to bump off his rival in a fake ‘encounter’ after declaring him a terrorist.

In Prakash Kadam vs Ramprasad Vishwanath Gupta, the Supreme Court observed that fake ‘encounters’ by the police are nothing but cold-blooded murders, and those committing them must be given death sentences, placing them in the category of ‘rarest of rare cases’.

In paragraph 26 of the judgment, it was observed:

“ Trigger happy policemen who think they can kill people in the name of ‘encounter’ and get away with it should know that the gallows await them”.

In the Hyderabad incident, it seems evident that the ‘encounter’ was fake. The four accused were in police custody and were unarmed. So how could there have been a genuine encounter?

I will conclude by quoting a judgment from Justice A.N. Mulla of the Allahabad high court:

“I say this with all sense of responsibility: there is not a single lawless group in the country whose record of crime comes anywhere near that of the single organised unit called the Indian Police Force. Policemen in general, barring a few, seem to have come to the conclusion that crime cannot be investigated and security cannot be preserved by following the law, and it can only be achieved by breaking or circumventing the law “

(Justice Markandey Katju is a former judge of the Indian Supreme Court.)

Editorial addition:

In an article in the Indian Express, titled “Encounter impunity on record: 74 probes complete in UP, police get clean chit in all”, Manish Sahu and Apurva Vishwanath write (extract):

(A)s per records, Dubey is the 119th accused to have been killed in what police called cross-firing since the Yogi Adityanath government took charge in March 2017.

Magisterial inquiries have been completed in 74 encounter cases where deaths occurred and the police have got a clean chit in all. In as many as 61 cases, closure reports filed by the police have been accepted by the court.

Records show that in all, there have been 6,145 operations in which 119 accused have died and 2,258 others injured. In these operations, 13 policemen lost their lives which include the eight near Kanpur last week. A total of 885 policemen were injured.

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Yogi Adityanath’s War on Crime Excluded Powerful, Connected Criminals Like Vikas Dubey

Subhashini Ali

Note: This article was written on July 9, after the arrest of Vikas Dubey in Madhya Pradesh, but before his encounter killing.

After a manhunt of almost a week following the brutal killing of eight policeman, Vikas Dubey, the well-connected, dreaded killer of Kanpur, has been caught, in a temple in faraway Ujjain. It is not his first arrest; in the past he has managed to escape the police even after being arrested, though never convicted. How the Yogi Adityanath government will proceed now will show how determined it is in its self-proclaimed war on crime.

Since the time it assumed power in Lucknow in May 2017, the Bharatiya Janata Party and its many supporters have been bestowing fulsome praise on Adityanath. He has been named ‘Chief Minister of the Year’ for two years running by a leading national publication. While his ‘success’ in dealing with COVID-19 and the migrant crisis has received much attention, it is his “handling of crime” that has possibly won him the most admirers.

Now, with coronavirus cases on the rise and disappointed migrants forced to migrate out of the state in large numbers once again, his claims on the first two fronts are being questioned. It is, however, the horrific killing of at least eight policemen who had gone to arrest the most notorious and powerful criminal Vikas Dubey, on the night of July 2/3, that could shred his reputation as a ‘crime buster’, a reputation that has been stitched together painstakingly.

A skewed Encounter Raj

On assuming the post of chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath declared his intention of making the state crime-free. He said that anyone committing a crime would be hammered (‘thoke jayenge’). There’s a double entendre here: Thoke jayenge is also colloquial for bumping off and, taking their cue from the chief minister, the police adopted ‘encounter’ as their modus operandi against crime, completely ignoring the advice of former DGP Prakash Singh, a tough cop and inveterate champion of police reform, who had warned against making an encounter an expression of public policy.

With Yogi’s blessings, many officers of Uttar Pradesh police threw both constitutional propriety and caution to the winds and embarked on an encounter spree. None other than the ADG Law and Order, Anand Kumar, made the bombastic statement on September 16, 2017 that the encounters were being conducted as per “the desires of the Government, expectations of the public and according to the constitutional and legal power accorded to the police”.

The statement is questionable because, in 2012, the Supreme Court had stated: “It is not the duty of the police officers to kill the accused merely because he is a dreaded criminal. Undoubtedly, the police have to arrest the accused and put them up for trial. This Court has repeatedly admonished trigger-happy police personnel, who liquidate criminals and project the incident as an encounter. Such killings must be deprecated. They are not recognised as legal by our criminal justice administration system. They amount to State sponsored terrorism.”

On the same day, in a further display of brazenness, the UP police announced that the government was allowing district police chiefs to “announce rewards of up to Rs 1 lakh for a team that carries out an encounter”. This apparent morale-booster was also in contravention of the 2010 National Human Rights Commission guidelines on police encounters (reiterated by the Supreme Court in September 2014). The guidelines state, “No out of turn promotions or instant gallantry rewards shall be bestowed on concerned officers soon after the occurrence (encounter). It must be ensured at all costs that such rewards are given/recommended only when the gallantry of the concerned officer is established beyond doubt.”

These statements and incentives fired many in the police to break all previous records as far as encounters in the state were concerned and on Republic Day, 2019, Adityanath could boast that more than 3,000 encounters had been carried out and more than 60 criminals killed. The chief secretary of the state immediately issued orders that all district magistrates must actively and extensively propagate these facts as achievements of the government.

There were few who noticed that the list of those killed and wounded in the encounters did not include any of the 25 most wanted criminals of the state, whose names are circulated to every police station. Nor had their properties been attached.

The facts therefore point to the necessity of subjecting the encounters to a close scrutiny. Who are these young men who have been killed and maimed in Adityanath’s war against crime? Many of those killed and maimed had no criminal record and those that did were mostly petty criminals; one of them when supposedly “riding a motorcycle” at the time when he does not even know how to ride one; a reward of Rs 50,000 was placed on a Dalit after he had been killed; many of the FIRs filed contain identical language and details; in almost all cases, post-mortem reports have not been made available to the bereaved families and there is no record of them having been conducted in many cases. The one telling detail about these encounters is that about half of those killed are Muslims while the others are almost all Dalits and OBC’s.

A few cases stand out. In one, a reward of Rs 25,000 was announced and then enhanced to Rs 50,000 hours before Sumit Gurjar, who had no criminal cases registered against him, was killed. Later on, it came to light that there is another Sumit Gurjar in the same village against whom six cases had been registered in 2011; and according to the police the other, innocent Sumit Gurjar was also involved in the same cases!

The NHRC took cognisance of the case and asked the UP government to respond in four weeks, which it had not done until recently.

In another case, Apple executive Vivek Tiwari was shot dead by policemen patrolling in Lucknow at night. This created an uproar and the policemen responsible were dismissed from service and the government gave his family compensation and his widow a government job. In no other case of an encounter did the Adityanath government show any compassion, a fact that could be attributed to its anti-lower caste and anti-minority mindset.

Who to attack and who to protect

A certain profile of who is to be face the brunt of police and state atrocity is apparent. At the same time, who are to be excluded from these attacks and who are to be extended state protection has also become very evident.

The brutality against Dalits exhibited in Shabbirpur, in Sahranpur district, within months of the Adityanath government being installed, the repeated use of the National Security Act against Dalits and Muslims like Chandrashekhar Ravan and Dr Kafeel Khan, the intimidation, arrests and physical attacks on Dalits, including minor children, accused of having participated in the April 2, 2018 Bharat Bandh against the dilution of the SC/ST Act, the formation of ‘Romeo’ squads to tackle cases of ‘Love Jihad’, the crackdown on the meat trade, the denial of justice to lynching victims are all examples of this casteist-communal mindset.

The protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act/National Register of Citizens/National Population Register started in December 2019 and gave the government the opportunity to display still greater viciousness. Young Muslim men died in police firing in Kanpur, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Rampur, Firozabad and Bijnor. Many others were wounded and beaten. Now those at the receiving end of state brutality are being threatened with huge fines and attachment of their properties on patently unjust grounds.

The government also has shown no compunctions in going to any extent to protect its own. It has withdrawn cases against the chief minister himself and against those accused of violent and murderous attacks on Muslims in the 2012 riots, it had extended protection to a ruling party MLA, Kuldeep Sengar, accused and now convicted of raping a minor and being involved in the killing of her father, and it has withdrawn a case of rape filed in 2011 against Chinmayanand, minister of state for home in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

When another policeman, Subodh Singh, was brutally killed by leaders of the Bajrang Dal and their supporters in Bulandshahr in December 2018, it was the killers who were treated with kid gloves. When they came out on bail in a few months, they were publicly felicitated by leaders and elected representatives belonging to the ruling party in the presence of the police.

There is, therefore, no doubt in anyone’s mind, least of all in the minds of the police and administration, as to who is to be attacked and who is to be protected in Uttar Pradesh today.

It is in the interstice between the two groups that Vikas Dubey was allowed free passage.

Dubey’s public rise to notoriety

Dubey’s rise in the criminal and political world has been meteoric and unique. He started as a petty gangster in the 1990’s and created a reputation for himself. He attached himself to a powerful politician, Hari Krishan Srivastava, who regularly changed parties according to the exigencies of winning the Chaubeypur assembly seat which he held for several years. When he and Dubey joined hands, he was in the Bahujan Samaj Party and the seat was held by Santosh Shukla of the Bharatiya Janata Party, a rising political star in the area who was given cabinet rank in the then Rajnath Singh government.

By 2000, Dubey was accused of committing at least two murders and, in 2001, he cemented his reputation for audacious ruthlessness when he gunned Santosh Shukla down along with two policemen inside the Shivli police station of Kanpur (Rural).

After this electrifying incident, it was expected that the government would go after Dubey with everything at its disposal, but that did not happen. Dubey evaded arrest and ‘surrendered’ the next year. His reputation as a ‘dabang bahubali’ was firmly established and from the Maati jail, conveniently situated in his area of operations, he carried on with his criminal activities of extortion, land grabbing and, possibly, murder. He also achieved electoral success in the zila parishad elections.

Three factors ensured his early acquittal: his supporters would put up a huge pandal outside the Maati court premises whenever his case came up for hearing where hundreds would collect, many of them carrying arms and, when the witnesses approached the court, they would be heckled and abused in the presence of the police and in full view of the court; the prosecution, according to lawyers present, put up a very weak case which did not stand a chance; all the witnesses turned hostile despite the fact that they included a large number of policemen who were witness to the murder of not only an important ruling party leader but also of their own comrades.

Friends in high places

None of this could have occurred without a helping hand from those running the government, initially the BJP and then, after mid-2002, the BSP heading a coalition with the BJP as the major partner. At the time of his acquittal, the BJP was heading the government but it did not appeal against this in the high court.

Dubey came out of jail in 2005 to a hero’s welcome and rode away in a brand new SUV, allegedly presented by the most prominent industrialist of the area, whose own meteoric rise paralleled Dubey’s!

Santosh Shukla’s brother, Manoj Shukla, former BJP vice-president of Kanpur Dehat and still a leader in that party with his own political ambitions, told IANS in an interview on July 3: “Vikas is a very vicious criminal. He has been persistently escaping due to political patronage. He murdered our brother Santosh Shukla inside the police station. There were around 25 witnesses to the crime most of them were policemen, but he got acquitted in the case due to political connections…In 20 years, Vikas always got acquitted in every case due to his political connections.”

Dubey has been arrested several times over the last several years but prisons have neither been able to hold him for long nor has the police clamped down on his criminal activities. In 2017, he publicly thanked two BJP MLAs from his area for helping him come out of jail.

Dubey was never included in the list of 25 most wanted in the state or even on the list of 10 most wanted in the district. He was allowed to function not just with impunity but with the wholehearted support of many policemen stationed in the rural parts of the two districts who touched his feet in public, attended ‘durbars’ at his home and aided and abetted him in many ways. He was clearly allowed to flourish because of his proximity to the powers that be.

This is borne out by an interesting fact. Arjun Deo Tiwari came to Kanpur as SSP in 2019 after having served in the same post in Muzaffarnagar where he is ‘credited’ with carrying out the largest number of encounters. Had he been truly inspired to root out crime, he would surely have made strenuous efforts to reign in Vikas Dubey and bring him to book. On the contrary, throughout his tenure in Kanpur, it seemed as if he did not glance in Dubey’s direction. One of his officers Devendra Misra kept complaining to Tiwari about Dubey’s activities but to no avail.

Tiwari was transferred in June 2020 and soon after, Misra set out to catch Dubey. Accompanied by several police personnel, Misra arrived at Dubey’s village on the night of July 2. The events that followed make it apparent that Dubey had been warned and had made all the preparations necessary to attack the police who dared to enter his den. They had to come on foot because the road to his mansion had been blocked by a JCB. They had to come in the dark because the lights had conveniently been switched off. Dubey’s men were ready and waiting.

Misra died as cruel a death as Subodh Singh had. And seven other policemen died with him. Several others are in different stages of recovery in hospital. Three of Dubey’s associates have been killed by the police so far. The SO of Chaubeypur has been suspended and the entire thana removed, Tiwari has been transferred again, away from the STF. Two industrialists are reported to have been called for questioning.

Devendra Misra died in the call of duty, as did Subodh Singh. Both of them had their limbs mutilated and hacked by their killers. Meanwhile, Adityanath’s carefully crafted reputation as a warrior against crime is in tatters.

[Subhashini Ali is a CPI(M) Politburo member.]