Delhi: 5 accused shot in the knee by same police team in 3 months, court takes note, points to ‘vigilante justice’

On these allegations, the court said, “The prospect of a strongman, local or parochial, delivering vigilante justice to suspected criminals being antithetical to the rule of law, no court of law can be dissuaded by the girth of the authority which may prima facie have vitiated the lawful exercise of power or deadly force.”

The court said each complainant speaks a tale:

⦿ Aijaj had left with four men to Rajasthan to buy cattle on July 24, 2021, when he was intercepted by unknown men at the Bilaspur border, taken to a flat in Dwarka and interrogated about cattle theft before being handed over to the Special Staff team. It is alleged the team took him and his brother to a forested area, and shot him in the left knee.

Police claimed the accused were cattle smugglers and when they intercepted his party, one accused shot a head constable wearing a bulletproof jacket, who in retaliatory firing shot him in the left knee.

The court observed: “The rule of law is the most sacrosanct holy cow, which police must protect.”

“It does, however, appear that the cattle vigilantism, so apparent in the nation of late, has made an appearance as bovine policing within the national capital too,” the court said. It noted that the fact that no cattle were recovered is either an ironic coincidence or “portends something frightful”.

⦿ Deepak Chauhan told the court that he was taken by the Special Staff on October 1, 2021, and kept in their office for three days. He alleged he was later taken to a cremation ground and shot in the knee. Police claimed he was going to supply weapons to a criminal gang, and when intercepted, he shot a head constable wearing a bulletproof jacket, who in retaliatory firing shot him in the left knee.

In this case, the court said it was quite peculiar to notice that an accused who was running away from police was somehow shot in the front portion of his leg.

⦿ Bablu told the court that he was taken away from a tempo stand near the Mangolpuri bus stand by the Special Staff team on October 18, 2021, and shot in the right leg the next day. In this case, police alleged that they were chasing down two suspects involved in armed robbery cases and one of them fired at a head constable’s bulletproof jacket, who in retaliatory firing shot him in the right knee.

In this case too, the court noted that he was shot in the front portion of the leg while running away, and noted that “clinical precision more commensurate with close-range gunfire cannot be ruled out”.

The court said its attention was drawn to the striking similarities in all three FIRs and noted that it “defies the ordinary reasonableness for the court” to accept that three different teams, on three different dates operating under ACP (Operations) and DCP, ended up shooting five suspects “with clinical accuracy”.

The court said it was mindful of a tendency of the accused to make allegations against police, but added: “Yet instances of custodial violence, wrongful implication and detention are an equally well-documented phenomenon in our country. In fact, countless commissions and judicial decisions have sought to address such tendencies.”