India should fear UP's 'sabka Vikas (Dubey), sabka encounter' culture

Welcome to Uttar Pradesh, a state that guarantees sabka Vikas, sabka encounter.

‘Sabka (everybody’s) Vikas’ because it is a state where Vikas, not development, but the archetypal criminal, belongs to everyone. This Vikas (Dubey) has his patrons in all political parties; games the system so well that in spite of being wanted for dozens of murders — one of them bang in the middle of a police station — roams around freely for two decades; and wields so much influence that even senior police officers moonlight as his informers and bootlickers. Seeing as how his influence is, you can almost argue, in Uttar Pradesh, mat darr (don’t be afraid) Vikas, ghar-ghar Vikas.

Related news: Kanpur gangster Vikas Dubey shot dead in encounter

It’s a state where the cops are so incompetent that first they walk into a trap laid by a gangster and get cut down by a volley of gunshots, being daft enough not to keep a raid secret, wear protective gear or have adequate backup force. And then, the same cops run around like headless chicken in search of a gangster who has pulled off an audacious assault on them only to realise he checked into a hotel and then slipped away to Ujjain, a good 670-km away.

‘Sabka encounter’ because this is how the criminal justice system works in Uttar Pradesh. It doesn’t bother to burden the courts with the task of conducting trials, pronouncing judgments and awarding punishment. All these powers have been usurped by the executive that allows cops to be the judge, jury and the executioner, a trigger-happy force that kills with impunity.

This philosophy of shoot-at-will is best underlined by a diktat by the state government in 2019. In an order issued on the eve of Republic Day, the chief secretary told district magistrates the government wants 3,026 police encounters, in which 69 criminals were gunned down, 838 sustained injuries and 7,043 arrested, highlighted as one of its biggest achievements. Critics were quick to point out that none of these encounters were with the state’s top 25 criminals whose names were circulated in every police station. But the government continued with encounters as its stated policy, merrily boasting about the numbers, even if in the end it was just killing petty criminals (reportedly) while gangsters like Vikas Dubey were moving around without fear, dreaming of ending up in the state assembly.

Encounter raj might be the UP government’s definition of the promised Ram Rajya. But which citizen in his right mind would dream of being a citizen of a rajya where gangsters, cops and politicians drink from the same well, where courts are rendered irrelevant, where a self-anointed monk in saffron clothes runs a ruthless government that practises medieval methods of punishing people even before they are found guilty — encounters, public shaming, destruction and attachment of property.

Related news: Vikas Dubey: The gangster whose private army ruled Kanpur

In judgment after judgment, the Supreme Court has said that cops can’t take over the role of executioners, their role is limited to probing cases, arresting the accused and then waiting for the results of trials. It has even warned that trigger-happy cops who kill people in the name of encounters should know that the “gallows await them” (Prakash Kadam vs Ramprasad Vishwanath Gupta).

But Vikas Dubey’s encounter shows so cocky have the UP cops become that they do not even bother to give encounters a patina of reality, leave alone fearing the consequences. Even Ram Gopal Verma, who has directed some really third-rate films featuring trigger-happy cops, would have filmed the gangster Dubey’s Friday morning (July 10) encounter better.

The government claims that Dubey, who willingly surrendered himself to unarmed guards at the Mahakal temple to avoid being killed in an encounter, tried to run away while being escorted by a posse of armed policemen. Really? Was he not in handcuffs? Everyone who knows Dubey’s history would know that he had a steel rod in one of his legs and, thus, couldn’t even walk 500 metres. How on earth did he dream of running away from armed policemen on a highway?

Related news: Last visuals of Vikas Dubey contradict police statements

The purported victim of an encounter is the criminal who is shot dead. But, the real targets of the guns of a government premised on the idea of ‘sabka Vikas, sabka encounter’ are the people and the judiciary. Extra-judicial killings may satisfy the collective conscience of a nation screaming for revenge. But they take a country on a dangerous path where the executive enjoys powers to destroy lives, preside over the destiny of people, reward with life, and punish with death at will, leaving people at the mercy of a powerful, whimsical entity that’s answerable to nobody.

Several years ago, Ajay Singh Bisht anointed himself Yogi (ascetic) Adityanath (master of the sun). But the way his government has become the sole dispenser of justice, acting as the judge, jury and executioner, and started deciding who has the right to live and who doesn’t, the UP chief is due for a promotion to the status of a deity who controls the destiny of his subjects.

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