Killing innocents for promotion and rewards

In the 17 year old insurgency in Kashmir, more than 60,000 people have been killed. Recently a new trend has been observed in these killings. Police officers have been conducting "false encounters" and killing innocent people to claim rewards and promotions.

The word "encounter" has until now been used principally to mean skirmishes between militants and the police or the military. For each new murder, the police invoke self-defence and insist that the miscreants opened fire first. Not surprisingly, since the law allows the police to use arms against anyone charged with an offence for which the punishment is death. In their affidavits, the police always say that the criminals had sophisticated weapons, imported or smuggled into the country.

It is said that the stand of human rights activists is demoralising for the police: The government says that it has neither ordered the encounters nor will it ask the police to stop the same. In fact, this isn’t an action taken against criminals, it’s a fight between two groups of criminals.

In the eyes of the public, law and order are breaking down. The prestige of the police is damaged and it needs to do something to limit the damage. "Encounters" are part of that damage control strategy. Police depend on informers to discover who pulled the trigger, not who instigated the murder. These known criminals are then tracked down and shot. The police version is that the criminals opened fire on them and they were killed in self-defence. There are no witnesses to corroborate the story. But public opinion is satisfied and police prestige is restored.

Police and politicians create an impermeable web of corruption and concealment..

In effect, there is a sustained effort by politicians and police to discredit the judiciary. Their story is that the judiciary is too liberal, too inefficient, cases take too long to come to court and too many criminals are released on bail on technicalities. The campaign to tarnish the judiciary is part of the apologia for the extra-judicial killings.