A first information report was filed against several officers of the Assam Police on Thursday for allegedly staging a gunfight in Tinsukia district in December.

The complaint named Mrinal Deka, the Sadiya superintendent of police at the time, Sub-Inspector Debasis Dekari, Inspector Si-im Sing Timung and former Tinsukia Assistant Superintendent of Police Bibhash Das.

It also mentions the involvement of 10 to 12 unidentified police personnel.

Three men – Dipjyoti Neog, Manuj Buragohain and Biswanath Borgohain – alleged that Deka and the other officers staged the gunfight on the night of December 23.

Neog, Buragohain and Borgohain claimed they were apprehended by members of the Assam Rifles, a central paramilitary force, who suspected them to be members of the banned militant group United Liberation Front of Assam-Independent.

They were then handed over to an Assam Police team led by Deka.

Neog, Buragohain and Borgohain alleged that they were taken to the Hahkhati forest reserve, where they were forced to lie on the ground before Deka shot them in the legs.

The police claimed that one of the men tried to snatch a pistol from an officer. To prevent them from escaping, the officers shot and injured all three men, the Hindustan Times reported, based on the police’s account.

“...It is not true that Dipjyoti tried to snatch the pistol from the officer-in-charge of Dholla PS [police station] from his holster and wanted to run away,” the men said in their complaint. “It is not true that any of us wanted to flee. It was also practically not possible to flee from police personnel who were around 15 nos [numbers] and heavily armed.”

The complainants said that the police used criminal force and “criminally conspired to kill them and implicate false charge of offence”.

The men initially filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court, which directed them to file a police complaint, according to The Assam Tribune.

In Supreme Court

On September 10, the Supreme Court verbally remarked that accused persons in Assam losing their lives in allegedly staged gunfights was “not good for the rule of law”.

Justice Ujjal Bhuyan said this while hearing a petition concerning deaths in such incidents.

The petitioner, Arif Jwaddar, claimed that 80 such confrontations were staged in Assam since May 2021, after Bharatiya Janata Party leader Himanta Biswa Sarma became chief minister.

According to Jwaddar, 28 people have been killed and 48 others injured in these “fake encounters”.

Assam’s Additional Advocate General Nalin Kohli told the Supreme Court that no police personnel accused of involvement in such gunfights had been promoted.

Bhuyan, however, responded: “It is not a good thing for rule of law that so many accused are just losing their lives like that.”

The court said it intended to form a commission to investigate the deaths.

Jwaddar had approached the Supreme Court after the Gauhati High Court rejected his public interest litigation seeking an inquiry into the matter.

In April, the Supreme Court suggested that the petitioner place additional material on record to support his contentions. Subsequently, Jwaddar had presented to the court the affidavits by Neog, Burgohain and Burgohain.