The media is filled with the stories of encounters in UP and recently a boy was killed in the crossfire of encounters in UP. The state should be by nature non-violent and if it has to use controlled violence it must use it according to the procedures established by law and not otherwise. From this perspective, any killing by the state and in the name of the state has to be brought under the spotlight of public inquiry.

We know how the tribals were set against each other in what is called the quasi-police force that was created in the name of Salwa Judum and how that destroyed the very fabric of the tribal communities. The state is not there to rule, but it is there to create a society which is based on fraternity, the principle that our constitution holds are supreme.

The list of the “gangsters” is even published in the newspapers with their names and their “vocation”, but who does define their crimes and their punishment? There is a process, there is a judiciary, and there is a system. But when the system is distorted and used to meet the political ends of a particular political party or an organisation, it is anti-national.

The encounters and the fake encounters have been the part of the process of the RSS/BJP that they started playing out in Gujarat and Amit Shah was implicated in the fake encounter case of an innocent girl Ishrat Bano. The killings that took place in the name of terrorism and to eat the political lunch out of it is inhuman. It creates the fear among one group of people and therefore it is not to be sought if the country is to progress. Our country is already regressing and with such an atmosphere of fear and hatred, it will go beyond irreparable state and it will destroy everything.

Encounters are anti-national and anti-human and they are illegal.

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale, Human Rights Activist

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