By Tirthankar Mitra
KOLKATA: Apart from being accused in heinous crimes like alleged rape and murder and alleged killing of a person who did not share his political ideology, there was nothing in common between Samaul Sheikh and Prahlad Das belonging to different areas of West Bengal, till the other day. But the manner of their death became another commonality between the duo.
Das fell to police bullets at Gaighata in North-24-Parganas while Samaul was killed in Samsergunj in Murshidabad. Both were being taken to the scene of the incident to reconstruct the crime. They allegedly snatched fire arms from the men in uniform and opened fire on them. Both of them died in retaliatory firing. The police firing was forced in “self defence.” The deaths have sparked a debate among the political parties of the state.
The focus is on the police laxity in securing their weapons. Both the killings have been categorised as encounter deaths. And the state is not new to them. If public memory is refreshed then there has been three encounter deaths in nearly six months after the BJP regime has replaced the Trinamool Congress dispensation in the corridors of power.
The deceased in Gaighata incident was an accused in a rape and murder case. As for the Samsergunj encounter death, the accused person had allegedly hacked to death a local BJP activist. Extra-judicial killings are not new in India. There has been a spike in these killings of parliamentary data is anything to go by.
Reports of many of these killings have come from Uttar Pradesh and Assam. It is not to be overlooked that BJP is at the helm of affairs in both of these states. Now West Bengal is afflicted by this rash. This is surprising.
Neither Left Front nor Trinamool Congress dispensations had instances of these incidents. Indeed the encounter killings blot the report card of the present BJP government in the state.
Encounter deaths, however, were common in West Bengal during the tenure of the last Congress regime in the state. Though the Left Front set up several enquiry commissions no big wig of the previous regime was brought to book.
The chief minister has not yet denounced the incidents. Condemnation has not poured in from any of his Cabinet colleagues. State panchayat minister, Dilip Ghosh said that the incidents will impart fear among the criminals. Justifying the encounters, state BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya said that what is going on in West Bengal is the rule of law which has replaced the rule of the rulers.
The Opposition has been critical of the two killings. But the criticism has not put the government on the backfoot. Sougata Roy, MP belonging to Mamata faction of Trinamool Congress demanded an explanation from the state government. But public response to such killings is often positive. It seems to be shaped quite a bit by popular culture.
A perception is trying to be fanned that these killings are manifestation of rough justice. But it falls to see that the killings are throwing a spanner in the works of the judicial process. The accused are being denied an opportunity to defend themselves against the charges levelled against them. And this is major fallout of vigilante justice.
The rule of law is one of the hallmarks of the civilized society. These extra-judicial killings pervert the rule of law. It happens when those who are mandated to maintain law and order take up the law in their own hands. Steps to reduce the occurrence of these incident needs to be taken.
Incidentally the Supreme Court has been consistently critical of these incidents. It has described them as erosion of the edifice of the rule of law itself. The perception that police encounters can act as a deterrent to crime must not be fanned. Such perceptions are not the right way to bring down the crime graph. (IPA Service)
