Lies and Bullets

In India, fake encounters are not uncommon and often, the culprits go scot free

Criminals who are in the business of extortion don’t stay in a dharamshala. And they don’t apply for work at Kotak Mahindra Bank, and then readily accept transfers. But that is not something the Uttarakhand police took into account when they gunned down a young MBA graduate in Dehradun. Ranbir Singh, 24, was shot dead after he allegedly fired at a sub-inspector during a routine checking.

Ranbir worked with the bank in Meerut and had just been transferred to Dehradun. After Ranbir’s family and the media cried foul, the top brass of Uttarakhand police hurriedly gave a clean chit to the policemen involved. But the postmortem report punctured their claims. It said Ranbir had been shot at close range, and his body bore 12 bullet marks and multiple lacerations, which pointed towards torture before he was gunned down. The state government woke up much later and ordered an investigation, after which a case of murder was registered against the cops.

In India, fake encounters are not uncommon. And often, the culprits go scot free. Just two months ago, a sub-inspector in Mumbai was let out on bail after he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the killing of ten Dalits. According to the 2007 data released by the National Crime Records Bureau, 16 policemen were charge-sheeted in human rights violation cases. But not one convicted.

In a speech last year, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said, “People seek freedom from tyranny in all its manifestations. They wish to be governed by the rule of law.” For Ranbir’s family, nothing could sound hollower than these words.

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