Deaths by Cross Fire : Extra-Judicial Killings
By Ziauddin Choudhury
In Bangladesh we became familiar with a term called "Crossfire" during the previous political government when accidental deaths of "rogue "individuals were reported when confronted by police. However, this was no ordinary police. A special force was created by the government to combat crime especially in big cities. According to a report provided by this agency to the media, 60 people were killed in such encounters or Crossfire in 2009, and 83 people in the year before
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The Central Bureau of Investigation of India (CBI) arrested recently Amit Shah, a close aide to the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in connection with a fake police encounter case leading to the death of one Sohrabuddin Sheikh. Shah was the Home Minister of the State until he resigned from the job recently after the accusation surfaced. The Sohrabuddin case is as follows.
In November 2005, Sohrabuddin was picked up by the police of Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh from a bus on their way from Hyderabad to Sangli in Maharashtra, along his wife Kauser Bi and another person. He was later gunned down in a fake encounter by the Gujarat police's Anti-Terrorist Squad which claimed he had come to the city to eliminate Modi. The accused policemen also killed Kauser Bi and their accomplice Tulsi Ram Prajapati to destroy evidence.
The matter remained under wraps for some time and no one really knew about this case. In 2007, nearly two years after the incident, Rubabuddin, Sohrabuddin's brother, filed a petition before the Indian Supreme Court claiming that that the Gujarat police's encounter was fake and demanded to know his sister-in-law Kausarbi's whereabouts. In March 2007, an inquiry was ordered, and on March 23, the Gujarat government admitted that the encounter was fake and the senior police officers involved would not be spared.
On April 24, the Gujarat police arrested its Deputy Inspector General (Border Range) D G Vanzara and Rajkumar Pandian, superintendent of police with the Intelligence Bureau, and M N Dinesh Kumar (Rajasthan police) on the charge of murdering Sohrabuddin Sheikh. Rubabuddin asked the SC judge to direct the Gujarat government to produce Kausarbi in court. On April 30, the Gujarat government admitted before the Supreme Court that Kauser Bi, wife of fake encounter victim Sohrabuddin Sheikh, has been killed and her body burnt. In addition to the senior police officers to date another six police officials have been arrested and named as co-accused in the case.
Police encounter is a euphemism used widely by police in India when explaining the death of an individual at their hands who was deemed by them to be a militant or "subject of interest". In reality these are extra judicial killings or executions not authorized by a court or by the law. Earlier such encounters went by the name of "staged encounters", where weapons were planted on or near the dead body to provide a justification for killing the individual. The National Human Rights Commission of India reports that since 1993 there have been 2560 cases of such police encounters in India, of which 1224 cases have been fake encounters.
In Bangladesh we became familiar with a term called "Crossfire" during the previous political government when accidental deaths of "rogue "individuals were reported when confronted by police. However, this was no ordinary police. A special force was created by the government to combat crime especially in big cities. According to a report provided by this agency to the media, 60 people were killed in such encounters or Crossfire in 2009, and 83 people in the year before.
This special or elite force to combat crime is actually a formal institutionalization of the ad hoc measure that the government took in 2003 called Operation Clean Heart to crack down on crime. The operation jointly launched with all branches of armed forces and police that lasted about four months reportedly led to arrest of several thousand alleged criminals and 44 deaths either in custody or at the time of encounters with law enforcing agencies. The governments halted the operation after four months citing success, but actually due to severe criticism by the Human Rights watch groups both internally and externally. I do not think there were any later follow up of the charges of extra-judicial killings that period. Instead we had a new force to deal with crime and criminals.
The stories above and the statistics of extra judicial killings in India and Bangladesh are not presented to show any comparison between the two countries or to demonstrate who is ahead in extra-judicial killing. That is not the intent of this write up. It is not about how many of the killings were justified, and how many criminals were apprehended by such extraordinary measures. The point is to what extent a legally constituted and democratically elected government should go to deter crime and apprehend criminals. To what extent a legally constituted agency could go and carry out its mandate in cracking down on crime? What are the checks and balances?
In Bangladesh we had many incidents of extra-judicial killings many years prior to the creation of the elite force or the joint forces operation. Two of these that come immediately to my mind are the one in 1974—a joint army and BDR operation in 1974 to combat across the border smuggling, and the other in 1975 to combat "anti-social elements" with the newly created para military force called the Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini. Both had led to apprehension of thousands and "accidental deaths" while the law enforcing agencies were "pursuing" them.
I have vivid memory of an incident during the joint forces operation against smuggling in 1974 in Dinajpur district. As Additional Deputy Commissioner I was the civilian coordinator of the anti-smuggling campaign in the district. One morning the commander of the operation, a Lt. Colonel of the army, informed me over phone in great agitation that he was facing an irate crowd in the area of his work and that he needed police intervention as he could not use his armed forces for crowd control. When I enquired about the reason, he informed me that his forces had gunned down some smugglers earlier at dawn, and this had enraged local people. He did not tell me whether the people gunned down were armed and if there was any armed resistance by them. I sent a magistrate along with a police contingent who brought the situation under control, at least for the time. An enquiry later revealed that the group of six that was shot to death was "suspected" of smuggling near the international border, and the group included a boy of fourteen. A "discreet" executive enquiry was held later that gave the army benefit of doubt. It was extra-judicial killing par excellence, but we let the army off for the greater good of the country through an enquiry.
The extra-judicial killings would continue in the country with the launching of similar "cleansing operations" in later years. Some we would know of through newspapers, but many we would never know. Yet, the irony of it all is that these killings are in the hands of agencies that have been officially established to protect life and property of people, not by under-world, under cover entities.
Any killing is a violation of human rights. When murders are committed by private individuals against others, there is recourse for the aggrieved persons provided by the laws of the country. The law enforcing agencies can and do apprehend the perpetrators of the crime, and prosecute them in the courts of justice. But what recourse an aggrieved party has when the crimes are committed by an agency which has been officially empowered to deter crime?
An alert and active judiciary usually would be recourse for seeking redress for these wanton activities, as has been the case cited above in India. Recently a Bangladesh court also brought to book several police men for alleged killing two years before. The court interventions and the consequent judicial convictions of the perpetrators are however small reparations for the human lives that have been lost and the impact that these have on the families they left behind. Countless lives have been lost for probably for no reason in last four decades in our country in what has been termed as encounters or cross fires. These lives would never be returned. We may bring to justice over time a few of the perpetrators, but will never be able to retrieve the lost lives.
Democracy is not simply the right of the people to elect a government they want. It is also a right of the people to live the way they want to live, and make sure that the government they elect guarantee that this right is protected by law. It also gives them the right to demand that agencies that are created by their elected government provide transparency and accountability for their actions. I have no doubt in mind that the majority of the personnel of our law enforcing agencies are guided by rule of law and respect for human life. Yet we have elements among us who may transgress the laws either in over enthusiasm in chasing crimes and criminals, or by momentary intoxication of power given by the arms in their hands. The way to address such wayward conduct is to have strict accountability of these forces in all their campaigns and transparency of these operations. In parallel we also need that our political masters do not use such forces to fight their battles. No one would want a Gujarat like occurrence where law enforcing agencies reportedly became willing perpetrators of a politically motivated "police encounter"
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Ziauddin Choudhury, a former civil servant in Bangladesh, works for the World Bank in Washington DC.E Mail : Zchoudhury@worldbank.org
http://newsfrombangladesh.net/view.php?hidRecord=331527
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The Central Bureau of Investigation of India (CBI) arrested recently Amit Shah, a close aide to the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in connection with a fake police encounter case leading to the death of one Sohrabuddin Sheikh. Shah was the Home Minister of the State until he resigned from the job recently after the accusation surfaced. The Sohrabuddin case is as follows.
In November 2005, Sohrabuddin was picked up by the police of Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh from a bus on their way from Hyderabad to Sangli in Maharashtra, along his wife Kauser Bi and another person. He was later gunned down in a fake encounter by the Gujarat police's Anti-Terrorist Squad which claimed he had come to the city to eliminate Modi. The accused policemen also killed Kauser Bi and their accomplice Tulsi Ram Prajapati to destroy evidence.
The matter remained under wraps for some time and no one really knew about this case. In 2007, nearly two years after the incident, Rubabuddin, Sohrabuddin's brother, filed a petition before the Indian Supreme Court claiming that that the Gujarat police's encounter was fake and demanded to know his sister-in-law Kausarbi's whereabouts. In March 2007, an inquiry was ordered, and on March 23, the Gujarat government admitted that the encounter was fake and the senior police officers involved would not be spared.
On April 24, the Gujarat police arrested its Deputy Inspector General (Border Range) D G Vanzara and Rajkumar Pandian, superintendent of police with the Intelligence Bureau, and M N Dinesh Kumar (Rajasthan police) on the charge of murdering Sohrabuddin Sheikh. Rubabuddin asked the SC judge to direct the Gujarat government to produce Kausarbi in court. On April 30, the Gujarat government admitted before the Supreme Court that Kauser Bi, wife of fake encounter victim Sohrabuddin Sheikh, has been killed and her body burnt. In addition to the senior police officers to date another six police officials have been arrested and named as co-accused in the case.
Police encounter is a euphemism used widely by police in India when explaining the death of an individual at their hands who was deemed by them to be a militant or "subject of interest". In reality these are extra judicial killings or executions not authorized by a court or by the law. Earlier such encounters went by the name of "staged encounters", where weapons were planted on or near the dead body to provide a justification for killing the individual. The National Human Rights Commission of India reports that since 1993 there have been 2560 cases of such police encounters in India, of which 1224 cases have been fake encounters.
In Bangladesh we became familiar with a term called "Crossfire" during the previous political government when accidental deaths of "rogue "individuals were reported when confronted by police. However, this was no ordinary police. A special force was created by the government to combat crime especially in big cities. According to a report provided by this agency to the media, 60 people were killed in such encounters or Crossfire in 2009, and 83 people in the year before.
This special or elite force to combat crime is actually a formal institutionalization of the ad hoc measure that the government took in 2003 called Operation Clean Heart to crack down on crime. The operation jointly launched with all branches of armed forces and police that lasted about four months reportedly led to arrest of several thousand alleged criminals and 44 deaths either in custody or at the time of encounters with law enforcing agencies. The governments halted the operation after four months citing success, but actually due to severe criticism by the Human Rights watch groups both internally and externally. I do not think there were any later follow up of the charges of extra-judicial killings that period. Instead we had a new force to deal with crime and criminals.
The stories above and the statistics of extra judicial killings in India and Bangladesh are not presented to show any comparison between the two countries or to demonstrate who is ahead in extra-judicial killing. That is not the intent of this write up. It is not about how many of the killings were justified, and how many criminals were apprehended by such extraordinary measures. The point is to what extent a legally constituted and democratically elected government should go to deter crime and apprehend criminals. To what extent a legally constituted agency could go and carry out its mandate in cracking down on crime? What are the checks and balances?
In Bangladesh we had many incidents of extra-judicial killings many years prior to the creation of the elite force or the joint forces operation. Two of these that come immediately to my mind are the one in 1974—a joint army and BDR operation in 1974 to combat across the border smuggling, and the other in 1975 to combat "anti-social elements" with the newly created para military force called the Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini. Both had led to apprehension of thousands and "accidental deaths" while the law enforcing agencies were "pursuing" them.
I have vivid memory of an incident during the joint forces operation against smuggling in 1974 in Dinajpur district. As Additional Deputy Commissioner I was the civilian coordinator of the anti-smuggling campaign in the district. One morning the commander of the operation, a Lt. Colonel of the army, informed me over phone in great agitation that he was facing an irate crowd in the area of his work and that he needed police intervention as he could not use his armed forces for crowd control. When I enquired about the reason, he informed me that his forces had gunned down some smugglers earlier at dawn, and this had enraged local people. He did not tell me whether the people gunned down were armed and if there was any armed resistance by them. I sent a magistrate along with a police contingent who brought the situation under control, at least for the time. An enquiry later revealed that the group of six that was shot to death was "suspected" of smuggling near the international border, and the group included a boy of fourteen. A "discreet" executive enquiry was held later that gave the army benefit of doubt. It was extra-judicial killing par excellence, but we let the army off for the greater good of the country through an enquiry.
The extra-judicial killings would continue in the country with the launching of similar "cleansing operations" in later years. Some we would know of through newspapers, but many we would never know. Yet, the irony of it all is that these killings are in the hands of agencies that have been officially established to protect life and property of people, not by under-world, under cover entities.
Any killing is a violation of human rights. When murders are committed by private individuals against others, there is recourse for the aggrieved persons provided by the laws of the country. The law enforcing agencies can and do apprehend the perpetrators of the crime, and prosecute them in the courts of justice. But what recourse an aggrieved party has when the crimes are committed by an agency which has been officially empowered to deter crime?
An alert and active judiciary usually would be recourse for seeking redress for these wanton activities, as has been the case cited above in India. Recently a Bangladesh court also brought to book several police men for alleged killing two years before. The court interventions and the consequent judicial convictions of the perpetrators are however small reparations for the human lives that have been lost and the impact that these have on the families they left behind. Countless lives have been lost for probably for no reason in last four decades in our country in what has been termed as encounters or cross fires. These lives would never be returned. We may bring to justice over time a few of the perpetrators, but will never be able to retrieve the lost lives.
Democracy is not simply the right of the people to elect a government they want. It is also a right of the people to live the way they want to live, and make sure that the government they elect guarantee that this right is protected by law. It also gives them the right to demand that agencies that are created by their elected government provide transparency and accountability for their actions. I have no doubt in mind that the majority of the personnel of our law enforcing agencies are guided by rule of law and respect for human life. Yet we have elements among us who may transgress the laws either in over enthusiasm in chasing crimes and criminals, or by momentary intoxication of power given by the arms in their hands. The way to address such wayward conduct is to have strict accountability of these forces in all their campaigns and transparency of these operations. In parallel we also need that our political masters do not use such forces to fight their battles. No one would want a Gujarat like occurrence where law enforcing agencies reportedly became willing perpetrators of a politically motivated "police encounter"
____________________________________________________________________________________
Ziauddin Choudhury, a former civil servant in Bangladesh, works for the World Bank in Washington DC.E Mail : Zchoudhury@worldbank.org
http://newsfrombangladesh.net/view.php?hidRecord=331527
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