This was the chronicle of deaths foretold. Don Atiq Ahmed and his brother had petitioned court after court for their security even as there were calls, from the highest quarters, for grinding them into dust. No less than a bench of the highest court had told Atiq Ahmed that the “state machinery will take care of you”. The state machinery did — on Saturday night. By letting the don-turned-politician and his brother Ashraf get shot point blank by three assailants with TV cameras rolling right under the nose of policemen who were escorting the two handcuffed men to a hospital. The assailants — three young men with a crime record, according to UP police — surrendered promptly and are in police custody. The government has called for calm, set up a judicial commission, and assured that due process will be followed.
That’s a tall order. For, the Saturday murders raise questions that go beyond who killed the two? The UP police has more than its incompetence and helplessness to answer for. Just two days earlier, the UP Police had killed Atiq’s 19-year-old son Asad and an aide Ghulam Hussain, both accused in the killing of Umesh Pal, a key witness in the 2005 Raju Pal murder case, in an alleged encounter — Encounter No 183 since 2017, the year Yogi Adityanath became Chief Minister. These police “encounters” have always been condoned by the government and, despite the brazen disregard for due process, projected as accomplishments of the CM and the administration. On Thursday, too, there was celebration all around, chest-thumping and back-slapping at a job well done. In contrast, on Saturday night, the chilling images of two men being killed on camera told a story not only of impunity but of a fumbling police force caught clueless — as citizens conduct their own encounter. How did the assailants coordinate their attack, were they acting on their own? Why and how did the police lower their collective guard knowing very well that these two were on many a hit-list? Even as the official investigation begins to address these questions and more, what course it will take is, of course, anybody’s guess. At the heart of due process is the political will to ensure it. What is visible is its stark contrast. One UP minister, Swatantra Dev Singh, tweeted soon after Atiq Ahmed’s killing that “paap aur punya ka hisaab isi janam mein hota hai” (sin and virtue are accounted for in this lifetime). Another has called it “a cosmic decision”. That heavens have moved, stars have aligned to deliver justice, instant and brutal. This is what happens when the culture of impunity and the celebration of vigilantism feed on each other, when the state nurtures and incentivises both, assured of a rich political harvest.
Murder-for-murder frames disturbing questions: Has the state’s message to the police that they can get away with murder, forget due process, reached the aam aadmi, too? When the alleged assailants say they killed because they were sure “this would benefit us in the future”, has the Encounter Raj come home? In UP, does anyone with a gun claim a licence to kill? This is just the opposite of what the Yogi Adityanath government’s message has been, that its promise of development is contingent on the way it is committed to law and order. This commitment lay riddled with bullets Saturday. How the wheels of justice move for the killers of Atiq Ahmed will test the credibility — and capability — of the state and its institutions towards enforcing the rule of law.
