Cold-blooded murder by state forces

The recent case of fake encounters involving the DIG police of Gujarat, R.S.Vanjara, and two other IPS police officers, has brought to light how the state forces regularly commit cold-blooded murder of various individuals, and then try to justify this in the name of 'fighting terrorists'.

In November 2005, the bus in which Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kausar Bi were travelling from Hyderabad to Sangli was stopped by police in mufti in the middle of the night. Sohrabuddin and Kausar Bi and a third person, Tulsiram Prajapati, were offloaded from the bus. A few days later, Sohrabuddin's killing in an encounter was staged. It took persistent efforts by family members to move the Supreme Court before the authorities were eventually forced to admit that Sohrabuddin had been shot dead in cold blood, and that Tulsiram Prajapati, the only eyewitness, was also killed. The authorities also had to go on record that they could not produce Kausar Bi, and that she too had been killed and her body burnt. From the reports of IPS officers investigating the case, it is also clear that a massive cover-up operation had been launched by the Chief Minister, Home Minister and other top officials and officers of the state government to absolve themselves of responsibility for the crimes.

Far from being a one-of-a-kind horror story, it is clear that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Vanjara himself has been involved in 9 other “encounters” in which 15 people have been killed, including a 19 year old girl from Mumbai, Ishrat Jahan, in 2006. With this record, he has attained a very senior position in the police service. This has strong echoes of what happened just a short time back in Ganderbal, Kashmir, where armed forces personnel regularly picked up and killed ordinary residents and then passed these people off as “terrorists” in order to gain awards and promotions. The case of Manorama Devi in Manipur, whose rape and custodial killing by Assam Rifles personnel sparked off mass protests, is also fresh in our minds. Throughout the North East, such crimes by armed forces are a regular occurrence. The infamous “Greyhounds” of Andhra Pradesh, and police and paramilitary forces in other states as well, regularly target villagers and tribal people in the name of their being “Naxalites”.

All this goes to show that the most arbitrary forms of torture and murder of people by state forces is a regular practice in what is called “the world's largest democracy”. For every one case which comes to light and results in arrest of the perpetrators, it must be remembered that there are thousands more which do not. State terrorism is used very systematically to eliminate people who oppose those in power, and it is also to spread fear and terror among the populace at large. It is invariably accompanied by high-pitched propaganda about how the state is under threat from “terrorists” and “extremists” and that hence strong-arm methods are justified. But what we can clearly see is that it is the state itself that is the biggest terrorist of all, armed to the teeth and backed up by all kinds of repressive laws which allow its personnel to commit all manner of crimes with impunity.

It is absolutely essential that the people of India get together and fight as one against this monster of state terrorism that is not only responsible for the deaths of countless innocent people, but that also seeks to create a climate of fear and confusion and thereby crush all opposition to the state. This task cannot be left to the courts or other state agencies, because state terrorism does not stem from just a few individuals or political parties, but is inherent in the very system that is intolerant of all kinds of opposition and which concentrates huge force in the hands of its personnel. People must unite irrespective of their region or community or political affiliation and show that they will not tolerate any form of state terrorism.