Kill thrill

Ajmal Amir Qasab is being tried for his involvement in the audacious terrorist strikes on Mumbai. Mohd Afzal Guru, serving death row for attacking the parliament, has a mercy petition pending with the President, but Ishrat Jahan had probably committed crimes graver than the two.

The only reason for the police's suspicion was an alleged coloured past, and that was enough for the trigger-happy team of former Gujarat cop DG Vanzara to shoot Ishrat along with her three friends, who, again, according to the police, were on their way to shoot chief minister Narender Modi. After all, fast clearance of cases industrial or legal is the benchmark of Modi's government.

One can argue, if Qasab can be caught and tried for his acts, why couldn't the Gujarat cops arrest Ishrat, even if she had any terror links, and brought her to justice through a court of law. But, a justification for the chilling incident can only be given by the state government or the cops let loose by the establishment.

I don't want to raise the issue of any bias in the police force towards a particular community. It's irrelevant.

Neither have I any complaints against the Modi government in particular. Just look around you; cases of suspects killed on the streets by the police can be found by the dozen.

The bodies of those killed either in self-defence by the cops, or conveniently labeled terrorists, dot the entire map of India. There are very few exceptions to the rule of the gun. Punjab (during the Khalistan insurgency), Jammu and Kashmir, Northeast, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, have all seen its cops accused of grisly killings.

I heard a retired senior police official debating on television how the police work under duress, the tacit approval by the government, and the slow turning wheels of justice as some 'justifications' for encounters. But the most disturbing thing that he cited was "public support" for such actions. "People want quick action against perpetrators of terror," he said. Yes, we need quick, prompt action, but does it give cops the license to kill? When the law fails to distinguish between the right and wrong, chaos will prevail.

The least that a state can provide its citizen is justice, but when it doesn't come that way, revolutionary ideas prosper, leading the society into a vicious cycle of violence and destruction. The Modi government has decided to appeal against the magisterial report on Ishrat encounter, and her family has also asserted to continue their fight, but even if the higher court comes out with a damning report, the state government will conveniently reject it. Yet another appeal will follow. Back to square one.

Limited forensic capabilities, coupled with the way the media often accepts the police's version, make the claims by the other side almost impossible hard to verify. Onscreen violence hurts, but real-life shootouts are far bloodier.