Encounter?

One of the hardest jobs is to come up with an appropriate name for a thing. When I decided to start a blog for my mediocre photography I decided to name it ‘Shot At Sights’ but my blog for today had no link to it, it is stands for what actually is meant for. However it is not ‘Shot At Sight’ but ‘Shoot at sights’. Often it is the motto for the men in Khaki. I knew a very nice South Indian family from Mumbai, the daughter was  a dear friend of mine but the son was real pain for the couple. Once he was arrested for his association with the underworld. Before I returned to Kolkata I tried to give him some advice and requested him to mend his way for his parents. During that time he narrated how police often threatened and made them to believe that they would be taken to a  dark alley and then to a cold storage. So, the word ‘Encounter’,  mostly the truth and reality lies with the men who have the loaded gun. It is unfair to say that all encounters are fabricated but some .. may be…. god knows.

Encounter

An encounter  is a euphemism  used in South Asia especially in India to describe extrajudicial killings in which police or armed forces shoot down suspected gangsters  and terrorists in gun battles.

Fake Encounter

A fake encounter or a "staged encounter" happens when the police or armed forces kill the suspects in custody or when the suspects are unarmed, and then claim that the victims were killed in a encounter when the police had to shoot in self-defence. In such cases, the weapons may be planted on or near the dead body to provide a justification for killing the individual.

Daya Nayak

There are famed police officials who became famous only being an encounter specialist, Daya Nayak is one of such. He rose to fame for having eliminated more than eighty gangsters of the Mumbai underworld as a member of the Mumbai Encounter Squad, which was created by the Maharashtra Government for tackling the increasing problems of underworld extortion, gangwars, and a terrible law and order situation. Before suspended from his duty, during his tenure, he amassed huge of property. Being an ordinary sub Inspector with Mumbai Police and an encounter specialist, such prosperity is impossible unless the fund came through the other world rather underworld.

Bumping in Cold Blood

In 2006,  Pintu Mishra, described by the police as a small-time criminal, was “bumped” off  in Allahabad because of his terrorists’ links.

In 2007 an 18-year old boy, Abdul Rehman, was killed in Srinagar by the security forces for being hand in glove with the Jaish-e-Mohammad.

Sohrabuddin Sheikh

In the wee hours of 26 November 2005, Sohrabuddin Sheikh was gunned down by the police on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. The Gujarat Government claimed that he was a member of the Lashkar-e-Toiba and was on a mission to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Batla House Encounter

Batla House encounter is still haunting the government is officially known as Operation Batla House, took place on 19 September 2008, against suspected Indian Mujahideen (IM) terrorists in Batla House locality in Jamia Nagar, Delhi, in which two suspected terrorist, Atif Amin and Mohamed Sajid were killed while two other suspects Mohd Saif and Zeeshan were arrested, while one accused Ariz Khan managed to escape. Encounter specialist and Delhi Police inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who led the police action was also killed during the incident.

Ishrat Jahan

The Ishrat Jahan encounter case refers to the encounter killing of four people claimed to be Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operatives by the Ahmedabad Police Crime Branch in 2004. The victims included Ishrat Jahan Raza, a 19-year old college girl from Mumbai, and three men: Pranesh Pillai , Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar. Multiple judicial inquiries by Indian authorities, in 2009 and 2011, concluded that the encounter was fake, and the victims were killed in police custody.

!!!Encounter of the Bloodiest kind!!!