Birth of encounter specialists

Mumbai: It was much before Harshad Mehta shook the stock market and long before the Indian economy opened it's doors to the world.

It was a time when the corridors of business in Bombay trembled with very mention of mafia dons like Vardarajan, Karim Lala, Amar Naik and Arun Gawli.

Gangsters and their men were really the kings of the commercial capital Mumbai in the 1980's.

That was until Julio Ribeiro became the commissioner of Mumbai Police and the metropolice saw it's first spurt of encounters.

When Ribeiro was chief nine encounters took place in a span of three years.

But as he examines the records of those encounters that included dreaded gangster Manya Survey, Ribeiro explains the difference.

He says that during his time encounters were the real thing and there were no cover ups and no twisting of facts.

"Encounters were done by the local police teams with their local information and there were no specialists," Ribeiro says.

It was a system that Riberiro says he did not even encourage.

"I went down to DN Nagar police station when the first encounter happened and they wanted me to felictate the officer. I said your job is not to kill people and explained to them their job is to investigate," Ribeiro says.

It was a voice from the old school of upright thought, which knew the dangers if things got out of hand.

Ribeiro says that if a police officer becomes a judge and enforcers of the law as well as the exectutioner then you know what will happen.

It took less than a decade for his prophecy to come true.

By the mid-nineties Mumbai saw the first encounters specialists.

Men like Daya Nayak, Vijay Salaskar and Pradeep Sharma had a swagger fancy cars and had popularity ratings close to film stars.

That's when the word encounter suddenly developed a new meaning overnight.

"It became a trend. One after another we heard about these fake encounters where there was a typical story that the gangster fired and the police officer was not injured and the gangster was killed in the bargain," former IPS officer YP Singh says.

"These specialists were the ones who staged the ecnounters and got all the glory for it," Singh adds.

From then till now it's been a downward journey for the encounter specialists.

PAGE_BREAK

Their image took a beating, as one by one the skeletons literally tumbled out of their cupboards and charges started flying quicker than bullets.

These hot shot police men weren't just accused of faking encounters but working for the gangsters themselves.

They had become mercenaries up for sale to the highest bidder - gangsters in uniform.

"All police information comes from gangsters. Now if you have specialists dealing with gangsters all the time then they will become just fronts for them, an extension of the unerworld," Ribeiro says.

"Earlier there would be shoot out between gangs. Now if one of the parties is the police then it becomes an encounter," YP Singh says.

But the phenomenon raises serious questions about the rot that has crept into the system where the whole police force actively conspires in these extra-judicial killings.

"If you see encounter patterns then you will notice that they happen only in certain areas because whenever an encouters happens the police have to register a case of unnatural death and conduct an enquiry. Only if these specialists know that the local police will co-operate with them that they hold encounters there," YP Singh says.

The current scenario shocks Ribeiro who had reigned in the gangsters in the 1980's.

"The police have just become crooks in uniforms. They have no fear left which is what is really bad," Ribeiro says.

And though this trend may have risen from Mumbai and fallen to it's greatest depths in the metropolis its message has fanned out across the country.

Almost every state and major city has its own encounter specialists and luckily for the moment haven't developed such dubious reputations.

"The encounter specialitists of other states don't do such encounters as most of them are genuine," YP Singh says.

For a nation caught at the crossroads with a judical system unable to deliver on time, a police force increasingly accused of being partisan and elected representatives who are actually criminals, it really is the only hope that atleast the upholders of the law carry out their duties within its boundaries.