A 38 year old sales executive, Vivek Tiwari was murdered in Lucknow recently. When the cop responsible for pulling the trigger was interviewed by television journalists he was nonchalant and said that Tiwari had refused to stop after he was flagged down at a ‘nakabandi’ (traffic check point). That was his only fault. The traffic constable, Prasant Chaudhary said that he fired in self-defense. This and similar incidents show how trigger happy the Uttar Pradesh police have become. And they appear to get away with murder. When Yogi Adityanath became Chief Minister, Uttar Pradesh he vowed to restore law and order but at what cost. The Yogi seems to believe that giving the police a free hand will restore the rule of law. The cops have now gone berserk and seem to take their orders straight from the CM. In this particular case, Adityanath has stated that Tiwari was not a victim of encounter killing and Chaudhary and his colleague have been arrested.
It is good that the UP government has not defended the killer policeman and due compensation has been paid to the victim’s family. But the state is still not in the clear. Tiwari’s murder is not an isolated incident. The government has done justice to the Tiwari because of the high caste and professional status of the victim and his family. During Adityanath’s regime, there have been 2, 300 shootouts and over 60 encounter killings. There is no denying that UP is overrun by hardened by criminals. But the FIRs lodged were identical. In many cases, families of victims were not given copies of FIRs. In some cases, families were not allowed to take the dead bodies of victims of encounter killings. The Chief Minister and others ministers have often whitewashed encounter killings. There is no reason to disagree with Adityanath when he says that criminals should get appropriate punishment. But encounter killing has to be condemned as has been done in several Bollywood films. Excesses cannot be justified in the name of maintaining law and order.
After Adityanath became CM he also started the Romeo squad to keep an eye on young couples. Many of them were harassed or beaten up on the pretext that they should not be seen in parks and streets. This sort of state-sponsored vigilantism strikes at the roots of democracy. Violence and impunity stalk UP. Tiwari’s murder and punishment of the guilty is not likely to stem the tide of police atrocities in UP.
