Bengaluru: With the Supreme Court laying stringent guidelines for police encounters on Tuesday, the state CID will probe into the death of any person in an encounter. “By this we have to treat encounter deaths also like custodial deaths and investigate it and submit a report,” said a senior officer in CID.
As the Supreme Court has also issued guidelines to the police that they have to record the tip-off that they receive in case, if they are going to carry out a possible encounter and the police personnel involved in the encounter will have to surrender the weapons and ammunition after the incident, it would be easier to evaluate it as an authentic encounter, added the officer. If the encounter results in the death of anyone, the police must immediately register a First Information Report (FIR) and furnish a copy to the court in the jurisdiction.
Earlier, the CID used to probe only police custodial deaths and some high profile encounters, whenever a probe was warranted or when cases were referred to them. But now circulars will be issued by the government or the DG office to the state CID office to probe into every police encounters henceforth to occur. These directions by the court will not deter the police in using their weapons as a strategic deterrent to prevent a crime in future. For instance, in Bengaluru, over the last two months since M.N. Reddi took over as city police commissioner on July 22, there were three separate shoot-out incidents where four kidnappers and rowdy-sheeters were shot on their leg for assaulting officers, while trying to escape from the cops.
“Only during an event of death during a police encounter, a probe by the CID is necessary and it is not deemed necessary all the times for every shootout there needs to be an inquiry,” added sources from the CID. The court also ruled that no cops involved in the encounter death should be given promotion or gallantry awards by the government until the investigations prove that it was genuine. The Supreme Court has also ordered that the officials probing the encounter killing should submit the status of investigation every six months to the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
