A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking judicial commission inquiry into gangster Rakesh Pandey›s encounter by the Uttar Pradesh police. Questioning the encounter, the petitioner asked how UP Police had suddenly received information about Rakesh Pandey and carried out an encounter if they had been unable to find him for several years before that.
The petition claimed that Uttar Pradesh Police is trying to become a “daredevil” and the supremacy of the Constitution, judiciary and rule of law is at stake due to this.
The petitioner also alleged that the police’s version of events is fictional and false, saying, “It is beyond imagination, the police version, and their conduct leaves several doubts, which requires enquiry. The police create such a situation so that killing could be justified as a real encounter. They kill a person intentionally and then convert it to an encounter because there has been the history of fake encounters in our country done by the police, in which the only reason they give is that ‘when we went to capture the accused, he opened fire and we also fired in retaliation’, and thus the accused/person is killed in an encounter.”
“The few well-known examples are the Ishrat Jahan encounter case in 2004 Gujarat, Sohrabuddin encounter case in 2005 Rajasthan, Dara Singh encounter in 2006 Rajasthan, Hyderabad encounter case in 2019 Telangana, Vikas Dubey and his other relatives’ case in 2020 Uttar Pradesh. It is also part of the history that 90% of encounter cases have been proven fake or doubtful. The public does not support criminals in society but the public also does not support the police committing illegal activities. There are cases reported about police acting dishonestly, killing the rivals of a party in fake encounters by receiving money or gratification. Cases are also reported about implicating a person in false cases and preparing the criminal antecedents and then encountering him by showing that he had been involved in many criminal cases. The law does not permit such activities. The police officials almost go unchecked and unpunished and thus they are encouraged to violate the Rule of Law,” the petition added.
Gangster Rakesh Pandey was gunned down by the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force on Sunday in an encounter near Sarojini Nagar Police Station in Lucknow. Pandey was an accused in the 2005 murder case of BJP leader Krishnanand Rai and was carrying a bounty of Rs 1 lakh on his head. A wanted criminal, accused of many heinous crimes of over 20 cases of murder and loot, Rakesh Pandey alias Hanuman Pandey was a resident of UP’s Mau district. He was also said to be the main shooter of strongman Mukhtar Ansari and was also close to gangster MunnaBajrangi alias Prem Prakash.