The Supreme Court said that the police personnel involved in fake encounter case should be awarded death sentence and hanged.
A bench of Justices Markanteya Katju and C K Prasad said that the police personnel as custodians of law are expected to protect people and not eliminate them as contract killers. Justice Katju, heading the Bench, said Fake encounter killings by cops are nothing but cold-blooded brutal murder which should be treated as the rarest of rare offence and police personnel responsible for it should be awarded death sentence. They should be hanged. The court observed that while directing the surrender of two senior Rajasthan IPS officers (Additional DGP Arvind Jain and SP Arshad) allegedly involved in the fake encounter killing of an alleged gangster (Dara Singh) by the Special Operations Group of Rajasthan Police on October 23, 2006. The Bench said that the accused police officers if they fail to surrender shall be arrested by the CBI which is investigating the case.
Justice Katju observed when counsel for Singh's widow Sushila Devi said that one of the accused Rajendra Rathore, a Former Minister was also absconding said that the same parameters will apply and the law shall take its own course.
It also observed that, if the crime is carried out by ordinary people, ordinary punishment should be given and if the offence is committed by police person much harsher punishment should be given to them because they do an act totally contrary to their duties. The court in the month of April had directed a CBI probe on an application moved by Sushila Devi accusing the Rajasthan Police of abducting her husband, killing him in a cold blooded manner and passing it off as an encounter. According to the Rajasthan Government, Dara Singh was a proclaimed offender carrying a reward of Rs. 25000 on his head and was involved in criminal activities.
In May, in another case of fake encounter killing of a businessman by Maharshtra police, the court said the actions by police cannot be treated as ordinary incidents and exemplary punishment should be given to the accused.
According to the court, it would not accept any excuse from policemen that they were acting at the behest of their superior officers. The bench added that we warn policemen that they will not be excused for committing murder in the name of encounter in the pretext that they were carrying out the orders of their superior officers or politicians, however high. In the Nuremberg trials, the Nazi war criminals took the plea that orders are orders but neverthless they were hanged.
News Reported by AR
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