On April 16, a petition was submitted to the Supreme Court asking that an independent expert committee, to be headed by a former Supreme Court judge, be established to investigate the murders of gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf. Vishal Tiwari, an attorney, has requested an investigation into the 183 encounters which have occurred in Uttar Pradesh since 2017 as stated by Uttar Pradesh Special Director General of Police (Law and Order).
Atiq Ahmed, a gangster turned politician, and his brother Ashraf was transported for a medical examination in the custody of the Uttar Pradesh Police when they were shot dead by three assailants on April 15. The lawyer said that the UP Police was responsible for ensuring the maximum safety of the accused.
The lawyer stated, “The power of punishment is only vested in the Judiciary. The police when becomes DAREDEVILS then the entire rule of law collapses and generates fear in the mind of people against the police which is very dangerous for the democracy and this also results into further crime”.
In his public interest lawsuit, attorney Vishal Tiwari also sought to order the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate, gather, and record the evidence in the Kanpur Bikru Encounter case of 2020, in which police killed Vikas Dubey and his aides in the encounter because the inquiry commission was unable to record the evidence in rebuttal to the police version and instead filed the inquiry report without it.
According to the petitioner, Uttar Pradesh Police is engaging in oppressive brutality and violations of the rule of law.
The petitioner had informed the court that he had petitioned it in a case involving the Kanpur encounter of Vikas Dubey and claimed that the Uttar Pradesh police had carried out a similar act in the encounter killing of Asad, the son of gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed, as well as the murder of Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf by unidentified assailants while they were in police custody and taken for a medical examination.
The attorney added that there are doubts about the incident’s transparency following the recent murders of Atiq Ahmed and his brother, and have raised eyebrows on the workings of Uttar Pradesh Police. Additionally, he noted that the law had severely condemned fake police encounters or extra-judicial murders and didn’t exist in a democratic society. It is not acceptable to use the police as a means of administering final judgement or as a sanctioning body.
Advocate Vishal Tiwari said in his petition, “Such is a direct attack on Indian democracy and rule of law. Later the assailants were arrested but during the commission of the offence, there was no protection or retaliation by the police. Such imposes a question on the transparency and proves this matter as a pre-planned attack with no redressal for the accused”.
