Law & Order in India

The recent encounter of the gangster Vikas Dubey who killed 8 policemen has stirred up a lot of controversies across the country. It was officially stated that Dubey was shot while trying to run away with a police weapon . While many are hailing the police forces efforts , there are a few who have found various loopholes in the version given by the police and are questioning their method of providing justice.

The main purpose of this article is to not dig too deep in this case but state my major concern with this whole issue which is how the law and order in India is normalizing encounters and other forms of  police aggression.  All the policemen in our country have been almost given a free hand to provide justice themselves and this is where the problem lies. The job of providing justice is of the courts in our country and not the police personnel. Now people might argue that sometimes cases go on for years and years due to which the criminal might get a bail and again resume his criminal activities. However should that lead to police taking law and order in their own hands? The answer is an astounding NO, to battle this problem the overall legal system should improve, more judges should be recruited, cases should be solved efficiently and faster but as is the general case in our country we choose to take the shortcut without any long term and widespread changes.

The statistics regarding encounters in India are extremely shocking and an absolute eye opener-

1)Over the past couple of years there has been more than  3000 police encounters in Uttar Pradesh without proper legal trials 

2)Leaders in other states like West Bengal have also proposed a “72 hour period for criminals to surrender failing which they would be encountered”

3) According to the National Human Rights Commision (NHRC) of India there were 440 cases of fake encounters between 2002 and 2008

The major problem of encounters in our country is that the masses actually cheer it. Movies in our country have traditionally glorified police taking law and order in their own hands so there is a general euphoria about it and is seen as the job of the police. Hence when the police actually do this   they are seen as heroes and the sole guardians of justice in the country.

 Another recent example of police taking law and order in their own hands is that of Jayraj and Fenix where this father-son duo was murdered by the police for no real fault of theirs. The “Criminal Procedure Code” of our Indian Constitution clearly states that In a person's trial, the accused must be informed of the charges against him and then given an opportunity to defend himself (through counsel) and only then, if found guilty, can he be convicted and executed, the police as it can be seen evidently don’t bother about it.

The politicians also have a key role to play here as they are the ones who promote these local goons in the first place and later just command the police to torture them when the goons go against their wishes. Even in the Vikas Dubey case there allegedly was an involvement of various politicians.

To sum things up every criminal in our country should be heavily penalized for the crimes, Vikas Dubey was a huge criminal and would have  inevitably been punished for his deeds and quite rightly. However people who commit crimes should also go through a proper legal process and if the police do take the law in their hands, they should be seriously held accountable. If we just start shooting and torturing  people who are not yet proven guilty it sets a very dangerous precedent and can result in many innocent lives being taken.