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Requests for probe into gangster’s death reach SC

The Supreme Court has so far received four requests for setting up a CBI probe or a judicial enquiry into the encounter killing of gangster Vikas Dubey in Uttar Pradesh.

The Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), which had filed a petition in the top court in 2018 against the growing number of encounter deaths in UP, moved a fresh application highlighting the deaths of Dubey and his accomplices, Amar Dubey and Prabhat Mishra.

Citing news reports, the application said that all three encounters followed a similar modus operandi. In two instances, the petition said, the criminals tried to escape after snatching a police pistol, attacked the police party and were shot dead in retaliatory firing.

The PUCL application said, “That the police version of the encounter raises many serious questions, in particular, whether they are simple administrative liquidations.”

The application said since January 1, 2017 till March 31, 2018, over 1000 encounters took place in the state resulting in 49 deaths and injuries to 370 persons. By October 2018, the number of encounters doubled and in 2019, the police claimed to have killed 103 criminals in 5178 encounters.

The application further stated that only a judicial probe can expose the role of the state behind such crimes. It said, “Police encounter or administrative liquidation is a serious crime – murder/culpable homicide and is an offence against the entire society. If such a crime is committed with the support of the State or where the State condones such an offence, it takes a very serious dimension….”

PUCL’s 2018 petition is still pending consideration with the apex court.

Pointing to an alleged police-politician-criminal nexus behind Dubey’s encounter, another petition has been filed by advocate Anoop Prakash Awasthi. In the petition, he has said that “trigger happy” officials in the Uttar Pradesh police consider themselves above the law and if this goes unchecked, it will pose a serious threat.

In addition, the office of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) has also received a letter from lawyer Atal Bihari Dubey, demanding an independent probe into Dubey’s encounter.

Hours before Dubey’s encounter, the apex court had also received a petition by a Mumbai-based lawyer Ghanshyam Upadhyay seeking probe into the death of Dubey’s aides. In his petition, Upadhyay said he suspected that Vikas Dubey too would be killed in similar manner. Following the encounter, Upadhyay has asked the SC Registry to list his case urgently.

So far, there has been no direction from the SC Registry to list any of the above-mentioned matters.

Source: HindustanTimes