List of most controversial encounters in India and their details. Vikas Dubey encounter stood first in this list. Vikas Dubey and five of his accomplices who were linked to him were encountered by the Police.
This has created ripples in the country but the controversy over the genuineness of the police action is being questioned. Though this is not the first encounter in our country, still it has raised eyebrows of quite a many.
In connection to the ambush on a police party, which was on its way to arrest gangster Vikas Dubey on June 2-3 night, six have died in police encounters in Uttar Pradesh. Vikas Dubey, the sixth was shot dead Friday morning. Police said he tried to flee and attacked the cops who were taking him from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, where he was arrested on Thursday to Kanpur.
There are few more encounters which led to raging controversies.
ISHRAT JAHAN
Ishrat Jahan was a 19-year-old woman from Mumbai, was killed in an encounter along with three men by the Gujarat Police in 2004.
The police alleged that Ishrat Jahan was part of a terror plot hatched to assassinate Narendra Modi, then the Gujarat chief minister. There was a huge controversy in the country regarding the encounter. The human rights activists and BJP’s rival parties alleged that it was a targeted killing.
The Supreme Court ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the killings, in which the role of several police officers of Gujarat came under probe.
A police officer, DG Vanzara, led the encounter and spent time in jail. Though the trial is still underway in a CBI court in Ahmedabad, DG Vanzara was discharged from the case after 17 years, in 2019.
SOHRABUDDIN SHEIKH
Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kauser Bi were killed in an encounter with the Gujarat police in 2005. The police stated that Sohrabuddin was part of a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) module.
This case was also handed over to the CBI after court’s intervention. Then Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah was named as one of the accused in this case. He was later discharged. In 2018, the special CBI court acquitted 22 accused for lack of evidence.
LAKHAN BHAIYA
Ramnarayan Gupta alias Lakhan Bhaiya was killed in an encounter with the Mumbai Police in 2006. Lakhan Bhaiya was considered a member of the Chhota Rajan gang.
Within a week of the encounter, Lakhan Bhaiya’s family moved the Bombay High Court seeking a probe into the encounter. An investigation was ordered.
The probe revealed rare facts about the case. The police officers involved in the encounter were convicted. The probe showed that Lakhan Bhaiya was killed at point-blank range. He had been picked up from Navi Mumbai by police on the day of his encounter. 21 people including 13 police personnel were sentenced to life, in 2013.
WARANGAL ENCOUNTER
The public supported the police action in this case. In this encounter the Andhra Pradesh police had gunned down three men in Warangal in 2008.
The deceased persons were accused of throwing acid on two engineering college students, who had rejected a proposal by one of the accused.
Though explanations were given by the Police that they acted in self-defence but many believed the action was to pacify public sentiment of the time. VC Sajjanar was the superintendent of police in Warangal at the time.
HYDERABAD ENCOUNTER
A young veterinary doctor was abducted, gangraped, smothered to death and her body charred in Hyderabad, in November last year. The news shocked the principles of the nation.
Four persons accused in the case were killed near the same highway, eight days after her body was found near NH-44. The Cyberabad police said that the four snatched police weapons and tried to escape from the police during a spot-verification exercise.
VC Sajjanar was the Commissioner of Police at that time in Cyberabad. He was again hailed as a hero like in Warangal. The Public sentiment was overwhelmingly in favour of the encounter. People even showered flower petals on the police, at some places.
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