[Reader-list] Encounter was a policy in Gujarat: Ex-DGP Sreekumar

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Encounter was a policy in Gujarat: Ex-DGP Sreekumar

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, former director
general of police R B Sreekumar said encounters were done by the state
“as a matter of policy”. Recalling his interactions with the then
chief secretary G S Subbarao, when Sreekumar was Gujarat’s
intelligence chief during 2002 riots, the former director general of
police said: “Subbarao told me that we will have to kill some people
to prove that the Gujarat Police is very strong. I did not agree with
him and said that it will amount to entering into a conspiracy under
Section 120-B of the IPC.”

With Judicial Magistrate S P Tamang’s report holding 21 police
personnel responsible for the fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three
others in June 2004, relatives of two other alleged victims of
extra-judicial killing by the Gujarat Police, Mahendra Jadav and
Jaffer Qasim, came here from Mumbai on Wednesday and demanded judicial
inquiry into the two incidents. Sumitra Jadhav, mother of Mahendra,
and Mariam, widow of Jaffer, have already moved the Supreme Court
through Mumbai-based NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP). They
have also asked the state for compensation.

Sreekumar, along with Teesta Setalvad of the CJP, was present at the
press conference. Sumitra and Mariam narrated how their relatives were
allegedly killed by the state police.

Sreekumar said the statement of the state government spokesperson, Jay
Narayan Vyas, regarding Tamang’s report “amounted to contempt of
court”. Vyas had stated that the magistrate had submitted his inquiry
report in a hurry by overstepping his jurisdiction and the government
will challenge it in the high court.

Sreekumar had earned the wrath of the state government for deposing
against it before the Nanavati-Shah panel probing Godhra and
post-Godhra riots of 2002. He was denied promotion by the Modi
government. However, he got his promotion post-retirement after an
order was issued by the Central Administrative Tribunal.

New Delhi: Gujarat government on Wednesday opposed handing over the
probe into the killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in a fake encounter to
the CBI or the Special Investigating Team (SIT) even as the Supreme
Court said there was a need for going into the bottom of the case to
erase all doubts. “The state has to go to the bottom of the case. The
investigation has to be beyond all doubts,” a Bench comprising
Justices Tarun Chatterjee and Aftab Alam said.

Even as senior advocate Dushyant Dave, arguing on behalf of
Sohrabuddin’s brother Rubabuddin, the petitioner, urged the court to
hand over the probe from the state police to an independent agency
like the SIT, state’s counsel opposed it saying that every time it
cannot be assumed that the Gujarat Police was acting with prejudice.
Senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, who defended the Modi government,
submitted that when the state has admitted that Sohrabuddin was killed
in a fake encounter and the chargesheet has been filed in the case,
there’s not much left for apex court to monitor. “In this case, the
monitoring by SC must come to an end,” he argued.

“This is no less disturbing when you admit that this is a fake
encounter,” the Bench remarked when Rohatgi opposed the suggestion to
hand over the investigations to the SIT or CBI against the wishes of
the state government.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/encounter-was-a-policy-in-gujarat-exdgp-sreekumar/515260/0