Notorious gangster Vikas Dubey was killed after 170 hours of hot pursuit by Uttar Pradesh Police. Two related incidents — first that of he and his henchmen killing eight policemen in his native village and second, the encounter of the gangster — have clearly exposed the failures in the criminal justice system.
These two incidents and a series of events in the run up to Dubey’s death in the police encounter indicate serious systemic failures. His case is a classic example of both criminalisation of politics and politicisation of criminals in India. Dubey was not involved in a petty crime committed at the spur of the moment but was a habitual offender and leader of an organised crime syndicate in UP.
After his killing on Friday people near his village distributed sweets. If you come to think of it, people distributing sweets (ladoos) on killing of a human being turned criminal is weird. It shows all’s not well in the society, there’s got to be something wrong. Therefore there is a need for serious introspection by all organs of the criminal justice system, bureaucracy and politicians.
Even the most dreaded underworld don would not dare to commit crimes committed by Dubey; he managed to survive for so long due to political patronage he had enjoyed over the decades. After his death all political parties have started blaming each other. The blame game is so intricate that it is difficult to understand who is lying and who is not.
The Congress and the Samajwadi Party are trying to suggest that he was killed because he would have spilled beans on his BJP connections. Omar Abdullah and D. Raja also came up with their one-liners — dead men don’t tell stories.
The BJP is quick to rebut with its claims that his family members bought lifetime membership of the Samajwadi Party and was closely associated with the party. Another theory suggests that he was closely associated with the BSP during his political career.
Dubey and his family members managed to win the elections of village pradhan. The fact that he had photographs with top political leaders is a testimony to his political support. So one could understand why it took the police sixty cases, mostly of heinous nature, and ruthless killing of eight policemen to gun him down.
Equally disturbing is the fact that police have no convincing answers to doubts surrounding his encounter. Any police encounter is also a failure of the system. It is debatable whether there should be encounters like the one in which Dubey was killed. Should such summary trials be allowed to continue? If yes, where is the need for the judiciary if police were to administer justice?
Most police officers, when asked about police encounters, get agitated. They are convinced that Hyderabadstyle encounters are the only solution to eradicate criminals like Dubey. According to former Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar, the logic being in the best-case scenario such criminals will be convicted. But they will again start their criminal activities of extortion from jail. Such criminals should be killed so that the chapter is closed for once and a strong message is sent to other criminals.
Also, there are no standard operating procedures as far as encounters with criminals like Dubey is concerned. The guiding principle is self-defence and “shoot to kill”. Procedures do not dictate that armed criminals should be shot in the leg. The procedures only say proportionate force should be used by police to overpower criminals.
Vikas Dubey was involved in murder of Santosh Shukla, a minister status politician inside Kanpur’s Shibli police station in 2001 and yet continued to go scotfree for 19 years. The police witnesses in this case turned hostile due to the influence of a political party.
Over a period of time due to the political support he and his gang members mastered the art of misusing the criminal justice system to their advantage. Despite being involved in 60 criminal cases he was out on bail. What was the judiciary doing all this while? Was it doing its job properly? Why was the trial of a serious case like this not expedited and handled properly? There are no simple answers to these questions. It needs a deep inquiry and longterm systemic changes. But it should be an eye-opener that a minister was killed inside the police station, yet the killer had a long run.
Dubey’s intelligence network was so strong that the local policemen promptly tipped him off about a possible police raid at his house in his native village Bikru. Dubey and his gang members had no compunctions in ruthlessly killing eight raiding policemen, including the deputy superintendent of police. This spinechilling fearlessness creates fear among people of India. If policemen are not safe, what to expect of the general public?
General public perception is that the police training was not up to the mark. People do have the advantage of hindsight criticism. But the least local police officers could have done was to ensure the rivalry between the station house officer and deputy superintendent of police of the area was not so intense enough to give tip offs to criminals.
Vinay Tiwari, SHO, who was close to Dubey and his gang, has been arrested on the charges of leaking the information about the police raid and rather than protecting his colleagues he fled from the spot.
Even after killing eight policemen Dubey managed to travel from his village in Kanpur all the way to Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh — more than 600 km — goes on to show that he was being actively supported. During coronavirus police barricades have been set up in regular intervals, however he could not be intercepted. It’s a sad commentary on how police approached the fugitive in this case.
Of course, there will be politics in a case of this nature. The Congress did not lose the opportunity of raising questions on how Dubey managed to flee and how and why he was killed in an encounter. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has demanded a judicial probe into the encounter. But the question is: does the Congress have the high moral ground to raise such demands when its own record of encouraging criminal elements is no better?
Dubey was arrested on Thursday outside the Mahakal temple at Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh after a seven-day massive manhunt. Former MP Chief Minister Kamal Nath said: “Such a big criminal whom the police are searching round the clock, his safe exit from Kanpur and arrival in Ujjain and later entry into the temple and the way he shouted to get himself arrested gives birth to a lot of suspicion. It hints at some protection and it should be probed.”
In fact most political parties first encourage dadagiri of a local criminal until the person becomes a big nuisance for them. The politicians treat them and their musclemen as assets to be used for electoral benefits. But when the criminal becomes too big for his shoes, they run them down to encourage another gangster in the area.
That’s why people like Shahabuddin, Pappu Yadav, Har Shankar Tiwari, Ravinder Singh, Virendra Shahi, Om Prakash Paswan, Mukhtar Ansari, Brijesh Singh, Atiq Ahmed, Sri Prakash Shukla, Rajan Tiwari, Mirza Beg and Babloo Srivastava are glorified. They become politicians, sit in Parliament and become Robin Hoods of sorts and thus justify their alleged criminal activities.
It is a misconception that gangsters like Dubey only exist in UP and Bihar. You will find such characters all over India.
Dawood Ibrahim, Haji Mastaan, Karim Lala, Chota Rajan and Veerappan, Naxalite gangs are examples of such criminals, who have enjoyed political patronage even down south.
Basically the system allows them to grow until they become a problem for politics and administration. Such criminals are let go by the judiciary due to lack of evidence arising out of police probes which are heavily influenced due to the criminal-police nexus.
When criminals become difficult to tolerate, there is a demand for police action or encounter. Such criminals become a law unto themselves, they start threatening police, lawyers and even magistrates. Some policemen to appease their political masters oblige and in turn create encounter specialists, who eventually start indulging in criminal activities themselves. There are only a small percentage of policemen who don’t indulge in such activities.
They are of two kinds — one who did not get an opportunity to indulge in corrupt practices, and two, who have strong unwavering principles.
According to Prakash Singh, former DGP, BSF, known for his proactive work in police reforms in the 1993 Vohra Committee, had recommended that the criminal-politician nexus should be broken. Twentyseven years have passed but nothing has been done to demolish the nexus.
In fact the percentage of politicians with criminal backgrounds has increased with every election. In the 2-17 UP elections, 36 per cent of MLAs had serious criminal cases against them as per their own affidavits filed by them in the Election Commission.
Singh questions what kind of governance you could expect from such politicians who will only extend courtesies and support to criminals in their constituencies. Obviously when there is political patronage to criminals in the constituencies they would be getting police support. This sort of arrangement or if you like a marriage of convenience makes it convenient for organised crime and corruption to thrive. Gangsters make enough money to sustain their several generations even if they have been jailed.
The Law Commission of India and the 2003 Malimath Commission had recommended a strong witness protection mechanism. However a robust witness protection scheme is yet to take off despite the Supreme Court giving its approval for the scheme in 2018 after getting feedback from various states. Had this scheme been in place in 2001 and Kanpur police had acted to protect the police witnesses to the killing of politician Santosh Shukla inside a Kanpur police station, they would not have turned hostile. Vikas Dubey would have been convicted and not allowed to indulge in any further criminal activities. This scheme, which is now in place to ensure the protection of witnesses and their identity, needs to be used to secure convictions. But there is a need to bring in a detailed law in this connection. If the Republic of Croatia can have a Witness Protection Act, so can India.
It has often been alleged that media and films encourage violence and glorify criminals. It may be true to some extent but the fact is media and films are just a reflection of what happens in society. However, there is always a hen-and-egg puzzle comparison in this case.
There could be some figment of imagination and cinematic liberty in play, but largely the basis of their stories is based on fact. Therefore, these days there is a tendency of glorifying criminals and playing up stories of gang wars on web series and cinemas as well.
This shows there is an audience which enjoys such violent stories. Even social media is flooded with violent pictures and videos. Though this is not typical to India, this sort of entertainment is best avoided. Or else you will end up giving a toy gun as a first gift to your child.
The Indian criminal justice approach is corrective and not punitive. But very few films go into the detailed back stories of criminals and depict why they became one. In a country like India which has social and economic disparity and depravity such violence would take time to phase out. These issues will be addressed over a long span of time. Shortterm measures to control such crimes include reforms in the criminal justice system and change in political mindset. But the question is: Who will bell the cat?