Videography of sites, testing of cops' weapons: UP govt issues new guidelines on police encounters

Lucknow: Amid allegations by the opposition parties that the state police's encounter spree was a 'cover' to hide their failure to nab the real culprits and widespread criticism from the human rights activists, the Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday issued new guidelines on encounters to what it said would make them more transparent.

The new guidelines made videography of the encounter spot and postmortem examination mandatory among other things.

UP director general of police (DGP) Prashant Kumar said here that the necessary directives concerning the new guideline had been issued to the district police chiefs and they had been asked to follow them strictly.

According to the new guideline, videography of the encounter spot would be mandatory in case a ‘criminal’ was injured or killed in the same. Besides, it also provided that a panel of two doctors would conduct the postmortem of the dead body and the same would also be videographed.

The FSL (forensic science laboratory) team would also be examining the encounter site, the new guideline provided.

The DGP said that the investigation would not be given to the police station under whose jurisdiction the encounter had taken place and the investigating officer must be at least one rank above the officials involved in the encounter.

According to the new guideline, the next of kin of the person killed in the encounter must be informed immediately and the weapons used in the encounter would have to be surrendered so that they too could be examined.

The state government had come under sharp attack from the opposition parties as well as the human rights activists over a large number of encounters since the BJP assumed power in the state in 2017.

The statistics revealed that as many as 207 alleged 'criminals' had so far been killed in armed encounters with the police in the state since Yogi Adityanath took charge in 2017.

According to the police sources, over 12 thousand encounters had taken place between the police and the 'criminals' in the state in the past seven years during which 207 ''dreaded criminals'' had been killed while 17 cops had also been martyred. Over 6500 'criminals' sustained injuries during the encounters in the past seven years.

While the opposition leaders have accused the BJP government in the state of targeting only a particular community and turning a blind eye to the criminals who belong to the other communities, the state police have sought to refute the allegation and claimed that it did not act against criminals on the basis of their caste or religion.

Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also slammed the UP police for what he claimed was staging fake encounters and said that the encounter proved that the BJP did not believe in the rule of law. Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh said that the encounters showed that the state government was trying to 'hide' something.