Instant injustice

Instant injustice

UP’s trigger happy police culture leads to shooting of Apple executive.

People are scratching their heads over what led to the gunning down in cold blood of Apple executive Vivek Tiwari, for not stopping his car when waved down by two cops on a Lucknow street. While UP police have arrested and dismissed the two cops involved – and chief minister Yogi Adityanath has said it was no encounter when announcing an SIT probe – the most plausible explanation for the killing is the permissive, trigger happy style of policing the Yogi government itself has encouraged since coming to power, going to the extent of turning a blind eye to encounters.

In doing so the UP administration has discarded advice from many corners to desist from a policy which gives unlimited scope to police to play cop, judge, jury and executioner – a violation of constitutional prescriptions and a ready recipe for abuse of power. Not surprisingly, the Lucknow encounter is just the latest of multiple killings where the police response appears disproportionate. In May, NHRC had sought a special team to probe 17 suspicious encounters. Such flagrant violations of the law by police themselves will hardly improve UP’s reputation as an investment or tourism destination.

The vigilantism reported from Meerut last week in which police proved no better than the Hindutva moral police squad, even going a step further by allegedly goading the girl to lodge a fake rape case against her Muslim friend, was another low for the police. An important check on police overreach is the judiciary. It is the judiciary’s functions – to try criminals, decide guilt and award punishment – that are being assumed by police on the pretext that criminals take advantage of never-ending legal processes. The Allahabad high court and UP district courts must redraw the lakshman rekhas that police are currently overstepping. The UP government, on its part, must factor in the damage caused to the state’s economic development plans by its reputation for harbouring a lawless police force.