EIGHT undertrials, all belonging to the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), were killed in "encounter with the police" on Monday morning within hours of their escape from Bhopal's Central Jail. Bhopal, the capital of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, made headlines in eighties when an accident at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in the city released at least 30 tons of a highly toxic gas in 1984, killing nearly 4000 people. The state is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi›s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). According to police, SIMI activists escaped after killing a head constable by slitting his throat using spoons and steel plates, and tying up another guard before crossing a wall using a rope made of bed sheets. Extrajudicial killings or "encounter killings" have long been a part of India's anti-insurgent operations. But insurgents are not the only victims. According to human rights groups, governments in the states and at the center sometimes resort to such killings to eliminate "undesirables" ranging from drug smugglers to political dissidents. Terrorists and Maoists (an extremist left-wing movement fighting for the rights of poor farmers and landless laborers) are high on the list of targets. Also victimized are supporters of people's movements, and members of religious and sexual minorities. Last month, 30 Maoist leaders, including some women were killed in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. As it is practiced in India, "encounter killings" supposedly take place when a criminal or those who police consider criminal resists arrest and tries to attack the police who then acts in self-defense. As is the case in other parts of the world, the Indian law enforcement officers too believe that they are even more free to short-circuit legal system and assume the role of judge, jury and executioner over a fellow citizen if the latter is a terrorist or terrorism supporter, real or perceived. In majority of encounter killing cases, it is the police version that is fed to media and the public. But right from the beginning, opposition parties, including the Congress and a section of the media have been raising important questions about the Bhopal encounter. There were many holes in the official version. What raised doubts were not merely a series of videos showing the police gunning down — at close range — men, who were apparently unarmed, but the statements of state and central ministers criticizing some people and parties for trying "to politicize and communalize an issue dealing with the country's security." Another question is how a government which failed to prevent high-risk inmates escaping a maximum-security jail manages to corner them and kill them in no time. Under pressure from opposition parties and human rights groups, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has ordered a judicial probe into the jailbreak and killing. But has not Chouhan prejudged the issue by declaring that those who were killed were "dreaded terrorists who could have wreaked devastation if they had been fully successful in escaping?" He also announced cash awards for all the cops who took part in the killing. Worse still, addressing a public meeting, he posed the question, "how long can you keep them under trial?" Many think he was indirectly saying that the cops did the right thing by delivering swift justice to the SIMI activists. Irrespective of the verdict or findings of the judicial commission, there are certain measures the governments in the states and at the center need to initiate to put an end to the climate of impunity that allows extrajudicial killings to continue in India. The first should be to register any encounter death as a cognizable offense deserving investigation. Police officers who commit human rights violations should face appropriate punishment irrespective of their rank. Police should be trained to act with reason and calculation. Too often, they are found reacting with a killer instinct.
