By Kashif Ahmed Faraz,
New Delhi: Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) conducted a workshop on Encounters and Civil Rights Protection in India on 19 October at Jamia Nagar here to train its volunteers about legal aspect of encounters.
Addressing on Encounters and Indian Law, Advocate Abu Bakr Sabbaq said that a double standard is followed in encounter cases, instead of filing an FIR against operating team of encounter, police files FIR against the deceased. Due to the death of that person, the closure report is filed without investigation and hence police personnel gets impunity in such cases. Article 14 of the Indian Constitution which states Equality before law and Equal protection of law is always ignored by Govt. and Court in these cases.
He further explained the recent guidelines of Supreme Court and commented that Apex Court weakened the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)’s recommendation on encounters.
Speaking on Encounter and Civil Rights Protection, Syed Akhlaq Ahmad, National Coordinator of APCR termed encounters as extra-judicial killings. Giving the statistics he added that the numbers of encounters in conflict zone like Jammu & Kashmir and North East state are very high. However, extra judicial killing in metro cities Delhi, Mumbai etc. are rampant according to the data provided by NHRC and National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB).
He explained the NHRC’s guideline to be followed by administration in case of any encounter. He urged the volunteers to do fact finding if such incident occurs in their area and monitor the procedure to be follow and if there is any violation of procedure then manage the representation and move the complaint to the concerned authority to get justice for victim’s family.
(Kashif Ahmed Faraz is Delhi based freelance journalist.)