Nabha, Bhopal and Hyderabad – When Police didn’t decide to hold back and did ‘faisla on-the spot’

As the whole country woke up to the news of encounter of the four accused in the gangrape and murder of a 27-ear-old veterinarian in Hyderabad, many people expressed satisfaction while some expressed their concern for due process of law but one thing must be remembered that this is hardly the first time. There have been a series of encounters happened in the recent years.

Notably, a veterinary doctor was gang-raped and killed recently, the assailants burnt her body on the outskirts of Shadnagar in Telangana’s Ranga Reddy district. Hyderabad police had arrested four persons. All four accused in the rape-and-murder case of a 27-year-old female veterinarian were shot dead in an encounter by the Telangana police during the early hours of Friday. According to the police, the accused were killed in an exchange of fire which also saw two policemen sustain injuries.

Encounters have always been a sensational topic among the people with several much talked about encounters such as Nabha, Batla House, Kairana gang and the Bhopal encounter. 

Nabha Jailbreak and encounter case

In the Nabha encounter case, police action in which was even lauded by the CM Captain Amrinder Singh, Punjab’s most wanted gangster Vicky Gounder was killed. In the operation, which had happened in Rajasthan’s Sri Ganganagar district, Nabha jailbreak mastermind Prema Lahoria was also killed.

Gounder was known for being quite active on Facebook and in the past, he had challenged claims made by the police by posting updates reportedly from inside the jail. In the past, he had uploaded photos and videos to claim credit for murders that he had ordered from behind bars.

The Nabha Jailbreak had happened as two terrorists and four gangsters were freed by a dozen men in November 2016 when they arrived at Patiala’s Nabha jail, disguised as policemen with two men in handcuffs. They fled with the six after a gunfight. Later it was found that they had help on the inside too. In the encounter, a notorious criminal was injured while another was arrested, police said. Two policemen also suffered injuries in the action near Pakki village — just 50 metres from Punjab border in Rajasthan.

Bhopal encounter of SIMI terrorists

Similarly, the Bhopal encounter also has a same story to tell. In 2016, Madhya Pradesh police and its Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) had chased and finally gunned down the eight SIMI terrorists as they had broken out of the Bhopal Central Jail, having killed a head constable and scaling the walls of the ‘high-security’ premises using prison bedsheets.

 They were cornered and gunned down 10km away from the prison, on the outskirts of the city, in a joint operation of the city police, a counter-terrorist group (CTG) and an ATS team led by IPS officer Sanjeev Shami. Most of them had been charged with terror and other heinous crimes and were related to SIMI and Indian Mujahideen.

The outstanding leadership shown by then Bhopal IG Yogesh Choudhary and DIG Raman Singh Sikarwar is still a buzz among the police of the country. It must be mentioned that MP police has done a great job in gunning down the terrorists of homegrown organisations such as SIMI and India mujahideen.

There are several other encounters that have made the headlines. The outstanding acumen of the Uttar Pradesh police in gunning down the criminals is also commendable. Recently, the official Twitter account of Uttar Pradesh Police in a tweet stated that 103 criminals have been killed and 1859 have been injured in 5178 police engagements in the past two years while adding that a total of 17,745 have “surrendered or cancelled their own bails to go to jail”.

Apart from this, recent encounter in the year 2015, the Telangana police had also gunned down five terrorists including Viqaruddin Ahmed, self-styled commander of Tehreek Galba-e-Islam, when they had allegedly tried to escape from custody in Telangana’s Warangal district while being escorted by at least 15 armed policemen to Hyderabad for a court hearing.

Viqaruddin Ahmed and his four associates, Amjad Ali, Mohammed Zakir, Izhar Khan and Mohammed Haneef, were accused of being involved in a series of extremist offences in Hyderabad, Gujarat and other states including the killing of three policemen in Hyderabad and one in Ahmedabad. Viqaruddin was suspected to have SIMI links and was believed to be connected with other anti-India organisations based in Pakistan.