In September, a court heard a case accusing Assam Police of staging encounters (Representational)
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed at the Gauhati High Court by a Delhi lawyer seeking an independent probe into the alleged fake encounters by the Assam Police. According to reports, 80 such incidents were reported in Assam this year in which 28 were killed and 48 injured.
In his PIL, advocate Arif Jwadder has requested the High Court to direct the Assam Police to submit records of all the alleged encounters and register FIRs in the cases.
He also sought an "independent investigation" into the "encounters" by the Central Bureau of Investigation, or a Special Investigation Team, or the police of another state under the supervision of the Gauhati High Court.
"The police officials involved in the fake encounters must be brought before the law," the PIL said.
The lawyer also sought a judicial inquiry by a sitting Judge of the High Court into the alleged encounters.
The PIL further pleaded with the court to direct the state government to give monetary compensation to the victims' families after due verification.
Assam doesn't have designated human rights courts in each district, as mandated by Section 30 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, Mr Jwadder claimed.
In September, a local court in Guwahati began proceedings in a case that accused the Assam Police of staging a fake encounter. The case was filed by the family of an accused who was injured in police firing when he purportedly tried to flee custody, the advocate of the complainant had said. This was the first court case against alleged fake encounters or shoot-outs by Assam Police, news agency PTI had reported.
The lawyer had earlier landed the Assam Police on the National Human Rights Commission's (NHRC) radar over what he said was an "encounter spree" that began after Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma's government took charge in May.
In his complaint to the NHRC in July this year, Mr Jwadder had alleged that the Assam Police shot down small-time criminals in "fake encounters", cooking up excuses that they attempted to flee from police custody. Seeking the NHRC's intervention, Mr Jwadder had said, "Police actions are denying the rights of the alleged criminals of a fair trial."