The Killer Cops Who Refuse to Fade Away

What happens when encounter specialists run amuck

What is disturbing about the video is how clear it is. It is a CCTV capture, but the movements are seamless, the sounds very audible. It is not movie-sharp but it is not fuzzy like the footage of 26/11 terrorists inside the Taj. You cannot see the faces, at least not sharply, and it is just as well. A white saloon parks along a kerb and a man in white gets out of the driver’s seat, opens the back door, takes his briefcase out and just as he walks around the rear of the car, someone comes running to him. It takes all of 15 seconds. You have to see the video again to get the details—the person who comes running is dressed like a security guard, you can still not see the gun, but the man with the briefcase raises his right hand as if to block something, five shots ring out, and he topples over. The gunman hits the fallen figure on the head with his gun (which newspapers would later falsely report as smashing a coconut over the dead body). Another person comes running and attacks the fallen man with what looks like a cleaver. More people enter the frame, a lady says something about ‘sir’, some run after the killers, and, as we know later, pull one of them off the motorcycle they’re escaping in.

This happened in New Bombay last Saturday. The man shot dead was a builder, SK Lahoria. The motive is not known yet, but normally there are two stock reasons—a business dispute or refusal to pay extortion. This murder is extraordinary because of how it has been captured from start to finish on reel. It shows both the frenzy and clumsiness with which a hit takes place—what sense does it make to stab a person whom you have shot five times and to shout loudly while doing so, inviting even more attention?

The killer who was caught confessed to something that took the case to another familiar dimension. He said the murder had been ordered by a former cop called Emmanuel Amolik. Amolik was a pioneer among that breed called ‘encounter specialists’ in Mumbai. He was among the first of these killer cops, even before the Mumbai Police adopted a deliberate policy of nurturing them.

Recently, you saw another encounter specialist Daya Nayak standing in uniform behind Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh at a public event. In the late 90s, he was regularly in the front pages of newspapers, impeccably dressed in smart casuals, always ready for a photograph. Later, it became known that he had spent crores building a school in his native place. He was suspended and his revolver taken away. He was frantic at the time, telling reporters how he expected to be killed any moment. He’s back now, considerably mellowed and with a leash on him. That has been the journey of each of these encounter specialists, at least those who managed to survive their own crimes—suspended, reinstated, suspended, jailed, freed, reinstated. Pradeep Sharma, perhaps the most ruthless and efficient of the lot, is still in jail. The movie Ab Tak Chhappan, was modelled on him. He’s facing murder charges, but it would not be surprising if in a couple of years he too is back.

The Mumbai Police don’t know how to deal with their encounter specialists. They did perform what the institution thinks is a stellar service. In the early 90s, it was apparent that a culture of gangster worship had started in Mumbai. Even college students were boasting of ‘contacts’ that went right up to Dawood. The Mumbai Police were corrupt and intricately intertwined with the underworld, and because of that, crime was organised and in ‘control’. In the 90s, that was suddenly no longer true. Every street corner thug was making extortion calls to businessmen, professionals and people who had bought expensive flats. No one was in charge anymore.

The police’s response was to kill all of them methodically. The men who did it were their encounter specialists. But once they had turned the clock back to crime being neat and organised, these killers were free agents. Big gangs started hiring them to shoot the competition down. Even now that they have been quelled into obedience, their inner character periodically breaks out. And so this murder. It’s a lesson that a human being is not a gun. He will not stay perpetually silent only because the trigger is not pulled.

About The Author

Madhavankutty Pillai

•