Encounters
Many of us tend to glorify encounter killings, mainly because due process is lengthy, and sometimes porous, but this interview with a ex-cop shows how it perhaps make the problem deeper and "covers-up" the bigger malaise ..
Bala - 14 july 2020 -We have been witness to these encounter killing in Maharashtra. Policemen who committed these murders were treated as local heroes, with a running tally on how many they killed. Don't remember too much of a hue and cry from civil society re rights of these alleged criminals. And due process! As long as these victims came from an underclass, it was largely deemed to be ok. Or what they deserved. Or, nothing to do with us!
Now, with PLU facing the trauma of jail, prolonged trials, trumped up charges, lack of affordable legal representation, etc., things may change. I am sure Chidambaram et all have a slightly more realistic view of our criminal justice system. The reluctance of British and other courts to repatriate Indians for trials in India, largely because of our prison conditions, tells its own story.
My own wish is to first start with egging the system follows its own rules - all vacancies of all judges at every level to be filled up immediately, and to follow the Prison Act / Jail Manual strictly.
A major but easy change I would like, is to allow plea bargaining - a procedure by which I understand about two-thirds of the cases in the US are resolved. Not perfect, but seriously better than what we have. And of course an acceptance that bail is the rule, and jail the exception. And we have the technology to track people on bail.
https://m.thewire.in/article/rights/chained-muse-notes-from-prison-varavara-rao-bhima-koregaon
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/varavara-rao-politics-jail-coronavirus-6510434/
https://youtu.be/7Dn2oenugAc brief profile of five rights activists arrested in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence case:
PRAKASH SINGH — former DG of UP police and the man who won a landmark judgement — talks about Encounters, CustodialDeaths, corruption & communalisation in the police. and on Yogi Adityanath, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati to pressures he personally faced. Youtube Channel : Enquiry
Way back in the late 70s, we had a report by Justice V M Tarkunde, titled "Encounter are Murders" - today we have left wing activists incarcerated under UAPA, and kept in conditions which are likely to result in their death. Take the case of poet Vara Vara Rao: . According to his family he is hallucinating, unable to walk, go to the toilet and even brush his teeth on his own. Repeated applications for bail and for external medical assistance have been denied to him by the courts over the two years based on objections of the public prosecutor and assurances of provision of adequate care at the jail. Poet Varavara Rao shifted to JJ hospital in Mumbai. Rao family along with several writers and activists had asked the Maharashtra government to immediately shift the ailing revolutionary.
The last time round when he was at JJ, he was prematurely sent back to jail, only because his bail petition was to come up for hearing.. So it seems more like a system response, when the system is not able to get its way.
Just see the vicousness with which there is a targetting of "Urban Naxals" . The Bhima Koregain case. It is not just to send a chilling message. It is to undermine rule of law..