Extrajudicial Killings: Is justice in peril?- (Blog)

“Just like justice delayed is justice denied, even justice hurried is justice buried.”

In India, extrajudicial executions aren't new. Police and security troops have used them in the past in different ways – to quench insurgent groups such as those in the 1960s in the regions of Bengal, and even in the 1980s in Punjab. Extrajudicial killing involves killing an individual without adequate legal proceedings. As a team of armed people arrests some citizens, announce that they are all culprits or criminal offenders, and execute them without even the advantage of a trial by jury. Typically, the word extrajudicial killings mean that perhaps the killers operate in some sort of governmental capacity, or that they have government-like control.

Essentially, there can be two different sides of the extrajudicial killings-one that analyzes and supports these encounters and the other against this kind of killings.

The judiciary should play a crucial role

Judiciary may not be up to the mark, but still better than police since it is independent to politicians to a great extent. The role of Police is to protect and enforce the law, not take it in their hands. If the police break the law with total impunity, they deserve no moral responsibility to ask the general public to follow it. If encounters become the new trend, people will strive to have faith in the law, which might lead to consequences where the law is assassinated by civilians in retaliation to an unlawful act of scars. There have been some charge sheets filed against the officers who have carried out the fake encounters but a few to none's action were taken. A country without a strong judiciary will be an autocracy and tyranny of the majority.

Need of such executions

Such extrajudicial encounters are carried out mainly by the Special Task Force (STF). Every state in our country has the power to raise the STF especially to monitor and handle the dramatically higher crime rates currently present in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Bihar, and West Bengal. This can be considered as an exemplary punishment for the criminals who are involved in illegal activities, mafia gangs, rapists, terrorists, and mafias who are a threat to our country. India being a developing nation needs to have strict rules and regulations for the citizens.

Is the justice served? is remains an unanswerable question. However, despite a recent crucial case as Vikas Dubey's case, I support the view that a murder of an innocent until proven is yet a murder of human rights. Moreover, irrespective of a murder committed by the body of law or a victim, extrajudicial execution remains bloodshed and everyone is still equal in the eye of law despite the position.

-Rupal Mathur

 Himachal Pradesh National Law University