Gauhati HC asks Assam to submit details of police shootouts on plea alleging that they were staged
The petitioner alleged that 28 people have been killed in over 80 staged gunfights since the BJP government came to power in May.
The Gauhati High Court on Monday directed the Assam government to present case details of all alleged gunfights since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in May, PTI reported.
A bench of Chief Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Soumitra Saikia was hearing a petition accusing the police of staging over 80 shootouts.
At Monday’s hearing, the court asked Assam Advocate General Devajit Lon Saikia if first information reports have been filed for each of these gunfights, as is mandated by the law. The judges also asked Saikia if an internal inquiry had been conducted.
After Saikia said he did not have the required information, the court asked him to submit the details at the next hearing on January 11, PTI reported.
In his petition, Delhi-based lawyer Arif Jwadder alleged that 28 people have died and more than 48 have been injured in over 80 gunfights staged by the Assam Police since May, Live Law reported.
Jwadder raised questions on the modus operandi of the gunfights as described by the Assam Police. In all of these cases, the police have claimed that they had to retaliate in self defence after accused persons tried to snatch revolvers of policemen.
“All the injured or dead persons were not militants and hence not trained to use pistols and it is very unlikely that they could use the service revolvers after snatching against the police force that were outnumbered and heavily armed,” Jwadder stated in his plea. “It cannot be the case that all the alleged accused could snatch a service revolver from a trained police officer whose pistols are normally tied to a rope to the waist belt of that officer.”
Jwadder has asked the court to give directions to book the policemen involved in these gunfights for murder, Live Law reported. He also sought a judicial inquiry into the shootouts by a sitting judge of the Gauhati High Court and monetary compensation for the families of those killed in the gunfights.
Besides the state government, Jwadder has also named the Assam Police, the state’s Department of Law and Justice, the National Human Rights Commission and the Assam Human Rights Commission as parties in the case.
