The Uttar Pradesh Police have announced that 183 alleged criminals have been killed in encounters during the six-year tenure of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s government, including the son of gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad and his accomplice, who were killed in an exchange of fire in Jhansi. According to data provided by the UP Police, more than 10,900 police encounters have taken place in the state since March 2017, when Adityanath assumed office as Chief Minister.The data further reveals that in these encounters, 23,300 alleged criminals were arrested and 5,046 were injured. Additionally, 1,443 policemen were injured, and 13 were killed in these encounters.
Notably, eight of the policemen killed were ambushed in Kanpur by aides of notorious gangster Vikas Dubey, who was shot dead by police when he tried to escape during transit from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, after allegedly snatching a policeman’s gun following a vehicle overturn.
Criticism
While the government and police have maintained that these encounters were carried out to improve law and order in the state, critics and opposition parties have alleged that many of them were “fake” encounters and have demanded a high-level probe to ascertain the facts. The recent killing of Asad and his aide Ghulam in Jhansi has once again led to calls for a thorough investigation, with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati among those demanding a probe into the matter.”By doing fake encounters, the BJP government is trying to divert attention from real issues. The BJP does not believe in courts at all. Today’s and other recent encounters should be thoroughly investigated and the culprits should not be spared. The government does not have the right to decide what is right or wrong. The BJP is against brotherhood,” Yadav said in a tweet in Hindi.