Assam under the scanner after rise in cases of encounter deaths since 2017

Published : May 04, 2023 11:00 IST - 9 MINS READ On July 5, 2021, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, while interacting with police officers as part of the conference on ‘Redefining policing standards in Assam’, said the police should shoot criminals in the legs if they tried to flee from custody. The police need not be scared of taking such action, but they should be scared of taking such action against innocents.” The Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government that Sarma heads is set to complete two years on May 10, and in this period, that is, May 2021 to February 2023, a total of 138 incidents of police shooting, allegedly on people trying to escape from custody, have been registered at police stations across the State. Angshuman Bora, Senior Advocate of Gauhati High Court, said the law was silent on who should conduct the probe in the counter cases that the police registered into incidents of “police action”. The Assam government was correct in describing these incidents as cases of “police action” and not “encounter” as there was no exchange of fire, he said. Ashad Ullah @ Ashadul Islam might have tried to snatch a weapon to flee from the spot near Sagunbahi Pathar at around 1:45 am when the police team had taken the accused for further recovery of drugs under Laharighat Revenue Circle on 15th of July, 2021 as led by the accused himself, which led to the controlled firing incident.” The Chief Minister, while replying to the debate on the motion of thanks for the Governor’s address in the Budget Session on March 15, reiterated that police action would continue if criminals tried to attack policemen or escape from custody.