Probe encounter deaths, orders HC

December 10: Two human rights groups -- the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights and People's Union of Civil Liberties -- can cele...

December 10: Two human rights groups 8212; the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights and People8217;s Union of Civil Liberties 8212; can celebrate a small victory. For today, on International Human Rights Day, Justice A P Shah and J A Patil of the Bombay High Court ordered an inquiry by a Sessions Court judge into the deaths of criminals Javed Fawda, Sada Pawle and Vijay Tandel in police encounters in Mumbai earlier this year. It was the two groups that moved the court upholding the criminals8217; right to life.

The organisations have alleged that most of the 99 encounters conducted by the Mumbai Police in the last three years were quot;fakequot; and quot;stage-managedquot;. PUCL counsel M A Rane stated that criminal Sada Pawle8217;s body showed bullet injuries on the head and chest. He alleged that bullet injuries indicate the brutal force deployed by the police. Counsel Majid Memon argued the police had killed a wrong person named Javed alias Abu Saima, whereas they actually registered an encounter death of Javed Fawda.

The judges today gave the interim order after three days of hearing the group of petitions challenging the genuineness of the deaths of 100-odd criminals in police encounters. They zeroed in on the encounter deaths of the three criminals Fawda, Pawle and Tandel. They stated that the findings of this probe will determine the need for a bigger probe in all the cases. The Sessions judge will have to present the inquiry report in the next three months. The petitioners will be heard by the judge. The Mumbai police have been asked to submit the relevant original documents to the HC in the next two days. The registrar is directed to seal the documents and send it to the Sessions Judge. The judges ruled out the possibility of adverse effect of the inquiry on the morale of the police force. quot;We do not see as to how an honest police force can have apprehensions of another honest and impartial inquiry. The honest officer should be ready to face another impartial authority,quot; they have observed.

The judges have said that higher ups in the police and state government feel such an inquiry is uncalled for, since the encounters are genuine. quot;But we deem it fit to direct a Sessions Court judge to scrutinise the matter.quot; Supporting the inquiry, they said, quot;We find prima facie substance in the fact that there is a common pattern in all the encounters. There is a similarity in the modus operandi of most of these encounter deaths. Police call the criminal at a certain place and ask him to surrender. The criminal is armed and opens fire at the police and no one is injured. Then the police fire indiscriminately leading to the criminals8217; death.quot;

A year of petition for the police

For the Mumbai police, 1997 has meant one thing: petitions. In what is described as an quot;unprecedented phenomenonquot;, a record number of petitions have been filed, either directly, or as one of the main respondents, against the police this year. The number of petitions has already reached 93 in the first week of December, and looks set to cross the 100-mark by the end of this year, say senior police officers.

Of these petitions, over 41 petitions were filed challenging detention orders served by the police in cases of accused detained under Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act MPDA, like Arun Gawli8217;s, while 11 are public interest litigations. The latter includes encounter petitions intervening in the Javed Fawda case.

Six petitions belong to Central Administrative Tribunal/Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal, while 31 petitions are under miscellaneous categories. Until last year, the number of petitions filed against the police was 70, while in 1995, it did not even cross the 50 mark. An upward trend has been noted in the last two months between September 1 and November 30, where the number of petitions filed is 38, more than one-third of the whole of 1997. This was the period soon after the present police commissioner, Ronnie Mendonca, took charge of the city commissionerate.

Story continues below this ad

quot;Much of my time is spent in replying to the petitions,quot; concedes a harried police commissioner. Mendonca8217;s office informs that petitions alone consumes more than one-third of his time everyday.

Whether the recent spurt in petitions is an indictment of police credibility is still an open debate. Reasoned a senior police officer, quot;Citizens find it more convenient to appeal to the courts than to police stations.quot; The officer was hinting at the Trudy Trinidade case, which made headlines last week. Trinidade was involved in a property dispute with one Dandona in the western suburbs. Mendonca had given explicit instructions to the senior police inspector of the Khar police station, Feroze Ganjia, to personally look into the case. Besides, Mendonca has stated in his affidavit that since Trinidade was complaining of death threats, she was advised to go to the specially instituted Anti-Extortion Cell. However, she chose to ignore police achievements in these cases.

Until August, 64 complaints were registered, of which in eight cases, some 19 men were arrested and after due measures were taken, calls stopped coming in 45 cases.

After the addition of four cells, the complaints increased to 123 in just two months.

Story continues below this ad

Nevertheless, in 13 cases, the callers were traced and 21 arrested. And after the stepping-up of security measures, surveillance and phone-tapping, threats stopped in over 111 cases.