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Politics presents us with dilemmas, and according to philosopher Bimal Matilal dilemmas cannot be solved, they can only be resolved. The resolution of a dilemma involves the making of intelligent choices. The choices are often painful.
In a school in Badlapur, Maharashtra, two girl-children aged 3 and 4, were sexually abused in the school washroom on August 13, by a 23-year-old cleaner Akshay Shinde. The incident provoked massive protests, and Shinde was arrested by the Maharashtra Police and jailed. He was then killed in police custody. The police unpersuasively pleaded that he had snatched a police officer’s locked weapon and opened fire on police personnel. The killing was retaliatory. Does the terrible crime Shinde committed justify his extrajudicial killing?
The only way to resolve this dilemma is to recollect that howsoever heinous the crime, the perpetrator should have been tried and sentenced in court, according to established procedures. Two crimes do not make for justice. An eye for an eye will make, as Mahatma Gandhi reminded us, the whole world blind.
We also must remember that extrajudicial killings are part of a corrosive pattern of lawlessness that has consumed our justice system. They have cast great suspicion on the police forces; ostensibly meant to protect citizens.
In a democracy the fate of citizens is not decided by the arbitrary action of a handful of individuals who hold power, but by procedures established by law. Guilt and punishment are not determined by vigilantes, whether Amitabh Bachan’s character exacts revenge in a film on someone who had harmed his family, or callous police officers whose powers are limited by law.
What is worse is that chief ministers, notably Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath, sanction illegal and immoral acts of shooting people on the plea that the world is best rid of criminals. Uttar Pradesh has become notorious as the land of extrajudicial killings. The police reports that it has gunned down 183 alleged criminals in encounter deaths.
The issue is further muddied when we learn that often the police resort to extrajudicial killings without any evidence to prove that a crime has been committed. The police has acquired the dubious reputation of exploiting ambiguities in the law, and ignoring the one issue that is crucial to the process of establishing guilt: evidence.
It is time that all police trainees should be made to read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories of the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, who sniffs around the crime scene even as he seeks to uncover evidence, or the lack thereof. Or at least show them MONK on Netflix, so that they can grasp the indispensability of proof before they condemn a man to certain death before the commencement of a trial in a court of law. The crimes committed by ‘criminals’ are reprehensible, and they cannot be condemned enough, but the process of establishing whodunnit must be according to practices of gathering evidence.
In a notorious case in 2019, four people including minors were accused of the rape and murder of a veterinary doctor Disha on the outskirts of Hyderabad. Her burnt body was found at an underpass on November 29, 2019. Shortly thereafter the four accused who were in custody, were shot early morning by a group of policemen. The police justified the killing by stating that the accused had tried to shoot them. After a writ petition was filed in the Supreme Court, the court-appointed a three-member commission to investigate this case of extrajudicial killing. The commission recommended that the 10 cops involved in the shootout should be tried for murder. More significantly the police had destroyed evidence. The commission dismissed the claim that the accused had opened fire, and that the cops retaliated by a shootout. There were neither bullets nor spent cartridges found at the site of the killings. Nor was a policeman injured. Policemen seldom are.
Reports also inform us that the police use cases that have been filed against ‘unknown persons’ to target individuals and hold them responsible. In most cases, the local judicial authority acquits the police of wrongdoing. The Human Rights Commission, the guardian of our rights, remain impervious to frantic and sorrowful appeals by families of innocent people slain in police shootouts.
In 2014, the Supreme Court mandated guidelines. An independent investigation must be carried out, followed by a magisterial enquiry that should be completed within three months. A summary of the incident must be submitted to the court within 48 hours of the death. These guidelines cover grievous injury cases ‘as far as possible’. This particular provision provides a convenient legal loophole for the police.
The other issue that knocks on the doors of our conscience is that the target of most extrajudicial killings are people who belong to the disadvantaged sections of society i.e., the poor, Dalits, and members of the minorities, particularly Muslims. They simply do not have the resources to struggle against palpable injustice.
The dilemma in the Badlapur case is a troublesome one. Our hearts bleed for the little ones whose lives have been blighted by the assault. But is the deliberate killing of the accused the answer? He should have been tried and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for the rest of his life. His killing was a shortcut meant to circumvent the rule of law.
(Neera Chandhoke is former professor of political science, Delhi University. X: @ChandhokeNeera.)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.