Once or twice a year, the Gujarat Police plays Dirty Harry, bumping off criminals against whom the charges cannot be proved. And in recent years, there has been no dearth of victims, most of whom are labelled as ISI agents, as the police forces claim ‘‘ISI conspiracies to spread terrorism’’ and ‘‘eliminate’’ senior BJP leaders ever so often. The police narrate the same old story to explain the deaths: he was shot down in self defence as the prisoner, while being taken for interrogation, snatched a constable’s weapon and tried to fire at his guards. The modus operandi is simple. The prisoner is usually taken out of his cell on the pretext of being interrogated in the dead of the night, the common timing being between 1:30 am to 5 am, with no witnesses to corroborate or deny the police version. n January 12, 2003 Sadiq Jamal Mehtar At about 1:30 am, suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) member Sadiq Jamal Mehtar was shot down by Crime Branch sleuths in an ‘‘encounter’’ in the sensitive Naroda area of Ahmedabad. The charge: Mehtar had conspired to kill leaders like Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and VHP general secretary Pravin Togadia. Crime Branch officials later said that they spotted Mehtar in the wee hours of January 12, walking towards the Naroda timber mart. When the police jeep stopped across the road, Mehtar reportedly opened fire. He was shot down in the retaliatory fire. No police personnel was injured. A revolver with six cartridges was reportedly found next to his body. However, the official version leaves several questions unanswered. If Mehtar was indeed a highly-trained militant, as claimed by the officials, then how come none of the seven members of the police team, led by Inspector J.G. Parmar and Inspector I.A. Saiyeed, were injured at such close range; why were there no bloodstains at the site of the ‘‘encounter’’; why did nobody see or hear the shootout; Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) P.P. Pandey claimed Mehtar’s weapons was of foreign make worth Rs 1.5 lakhs but forensic officials said the weapon recovered from the spot was a .32 calibre country-made revolver. Despite the gaping holes, the encounter was forgotten a day later. n October 22, 2002 Samir Khan Safraz Khan Pathan Arrested on charges of conspiring to kill Advani and Modi, Pathan suffered bullet injuries in his chest and temple in an ‘‘encounter’’. Police claimed that Pathan ‘‘attempted to flee after snatching a police weapon’’. Again, none of the seven policemen present were injured. And why should Pathan be taken to reconstruct the scene of a crime committed in 1996, which had nothing to do with the alleged conspiracy to assassinate Advani and Modi, at 1:30 am? In this case, the NHRC did ask the Gujarat Chief Secretary and the Ahmedabad Commissioner of Police to explain the circumstances leading to Pathan’s custodial death. n January 6, 2002 Raju Latif Dafer, Sheru Chaya Dafer The Dafers were notorious highway robbers, allegedly involved in over 100 dacoities. The official version goes thus: the Crime Branch sleuths received a tip-off that Raju and Sheru were on the Bhavnagar highway and would try to rob luxury bus passengers. The police team, in plainclothes, set out in an unmarked jeep. They were stopped by the Dafers, who opened fire. The police retaliated, killing both the robbers on the spot. Interestingly, the robbers seem to have recognised the policemen even in the dark. And they missed at close range. None of the officials even received a scratch. At the same time, the sleuths had enough time to get out of the jeep, draw their weapons and shoot them down in the dark. n December 7, 2001 Asif Reza Khan Police claimed that Asif had links with militant outfits like the LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammad. He was also alleged to be involved in the funding of the September 11 attacks in the US. A group apparently named after him, the Asif Raza Commando Force, is said to be behind the attack on the Kolkata American Centre. It was Asif who reportedly forewarned the authorities about the attacks on Parliament and the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly. But there are several discrepancies in the official version of the manner in which Asif was killed by the Rajkot Police. As many as 16 policemen were accompanying Asif when he allegedly tried to escape. Sudhir Sinha, the then Rajkot Police Commissioner, claimed the police fired when Asif grabbed a .303 rifle and tried to attack them. But in a briefing on December 7, the police claimed Asif had grabbed an AK-47. Sinha claimed six of the policemen fired back, killing him on the spot. But the inquest report only showed two bullet wounds.
