An Open Letter to Shri Pranab Mukherji

To

The President of India

8 November, 2016

Subject: Legal name of Murder = (Fake) Encounter

Respected Sir,

I am writing this letter as a responsible citizen of India and a student to note my concern at the  recent deaths of certain citizens of India, on 24th and 31st of October 2016, one at the border of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa (AOB) and another at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, both carried out by the police, who may have come under the pressure of political leaders.

The killing of alleged Maoists and police at AOB, the gruesome pictures of which circulated on the social media, was a shocking episode, capable of putting a civilized nation to shame.  Though both the DGP of Andhra Pradesh and rural SP of Vizag have reiterated that the deaths were a result of an encounter between Greyhounds and Maoists, members of the media and social media, as well as human rights organizations, have raised various points which point to a preplanned mass murder instead of an encounter.

Within a week, a similar incident took place in Madhya Pradesh, involving the death of nine people (eight prisoners and one policeman). I am prepared to go as far as to say that to cover up the murder in the guise of encounter, these heartless policemen were ready to kill one of their own. News speaks “Only in India can the moral hazard of fake encounter killings be diluted by presumptive political positioning that serve to turn focus away from the real issue to a predictable, partisan tu tu main main. The controversy over the jailbreak and subsequent killing of eight SIMI operatives by the Madhya Pradesh Police have predictably given rise to building of narratives over ever-deepening fault lines..” Such lines degrade the values, morale and importance of the nation and its administration, whose work is to secure the life of people  and not to kill them.

The Aler fake encounter case of April, 2015 that took place in Telangana, and even till  now, the families of the victims have not received justice.  They have been  running behind courts and lawyers for justice, but I feel ashamed to say that our judiciary sometimes act blind, as people who occupy positions in judiciary come under pressure from political leaders and governments whose interests go against the rights of common people of India.

Such episodes have caused people of India to lose faith in the judiciary. As one media organization pointed out, “Knocking the doors of the corridors of power, relatives of the Telangana ‘fake’ encounter victims from Hyderabad forcefully pitched the demand of a CBI inquiry into the killing of five Muslim under-trials in an police ‘encounter’ at Aler on April 7. Alleging political pressure on the local judiciary, they said they are fast losing faith in the justice system of the country even as the Andhra Pradesh High Court, which itself has ruled that a probe is mandatory into any custodial death or an encounter killing, is deferring their petition on one pretext or the other for last five months.”

I also want to add that there is no necessity to differentiate between a ‘fake’ and real encounter, since any kind of killing of citizens by officials is morally wrong. The term ‘encounter’ is just an attempt to give a legal name to murder.

Such incidents across the state have also led people to believe that the central and state governments are ruling by power, not democracy. Democracy is being slowly murdered and replaced by monocracy. These heinous police acts point not to a democracy but an anarchic state that better fits barbaric middle ages.

If we analyse the situations ,we get the feeling that the central government is going into defense mode whenever their failures come up for scrutiny. The Uri attack, for example. The government claimed there was a surgical strike and people asked for proof,  but instead of providing clear answers, they began talking about triple and uniform civil code. Prime Minister Modi declared that he would safeguard the rights of Muslim women. But the statement only came back to bite him, as he was asked to look after the rights of his own wife first.

Recently on 24th Oct police attacked Maoists at Andhra Pradesh and Orissa boarder (AOB)… many ngos n civil right organizations questioned state and central government, govt failed to answer and  with in a week to divert this issue bhopal killing of 8 prisoners took place, many other issues are running parallel about missing of Najeeb and UCC etc, all these issues are only to cover the failure of central government as UP election are on head.

Mr President, I beg  you to save the democracy of the nation, as a last resort in a country where both the judiciary and government is doing nothing to safeguard the rights of the citizens. I request you to look into the matters, as we have a little hope on the judiciary with its perfect laws that can help find the facts and punish the culprits.

A concerned citizen

Syed Azharuddin

Telanagana

#Bhopalencounter