Police encounters in Telangana, AP

The recent police shootouts in both the Telugu states which claimed 30 lives is generating heated reactions in public, political parties as well as in media. Both the incidents showed the aggressive police action and spot decision making. The Home ministers of the respective states had little or no knowledge about the entire incidents before or during the encounter which indicates the puppet stature of these Home ministers. Each of these three incidents two in Telangana and one in Seshachalam forests of Andhra Pradesh need to be analyzed separately due to their implications.

The series of incidents first started in Nalgonda district of Telangana state where SIMI activists who are jail breakers in Madhya Pradesh reached Telangana. The state home minister who has no clarity about the backdrop of the incident simply wrote it off as an incident of robbery. Only after NIA entered the scene, the home minister of TS came to know that it’s a case of SIMI terrorists. This shows the gap between the police and Home minister.

Secondly, Minister Nayani should not have commented without getting all the facts to his knowledge. The Telangana government has never shown adequate interest in upgrading weapons of the police department as much they have shown in buying luxury vehicles for the police. The government spent crores of rupees in buying Innova vehicles for traffic police use which can be done away even with bolero kind of vehicles. The money saved on this account is good enough to equip the police with better weapons and armory. But leaders on the top are interested in acting for lobbyists and get kickbacks but not the welfare of the police. Had the police possessed better weapons, they would not have lost their lives.

The second incident in which police killed the Vikaruddin gang while transferring them from Warangal jail to court is also an incident where police swiftly acted against the brutal gang of the dreaded terrorist who gave a slip to police many a time. Though there are people who criticize these actions and use these issues to get political mileage against the government, police should be given a free hand in dealing with terrorists who had links with foreign land and religious fanaticism.

Every terrorist’s parents claim that their son is innocent, but facts should be given priority over these claims and even judiciary and human rights commission should not ignore facts of the terrorist record of the person involved. If every terrorist case is considered on human grounds, the country will be taken for a ride by Pakistani militants.

Now let us examine the case of Andhra Pradesh police encounter at Seshachalam forest where 20 people were killed in police firing. Opposition parties Congress, CPI and Tamil sanghams from Tamil Nadu state are terming this incident as state terror against the daily wage earners. AP Police claims that these people retaliated when they were caught red handed and henceforth opened fire in self defence. Here in this case we can clearly see that over the years the forests of Chittoor district are cut and valuable red sanders smuggled across the world. Many police and forest officers laid down their lives in curbing this activity.

Even in the past, several cases of this kind have taken place. Tamil labourers were caught in hundreds of numbers and they were arrested and later released on bail and punishments. Tamil Sanghams or government of Tamil Nadu never made an attempt to stop these labourers from entering our state for this illegal activity. Never have they taken steps to rehabilitate these people. This is not the first time that these kinds of encounters were done where there was loss of lives on both sides. Clearly the red sandal smuggling has political backing over the years and trade is flourishing only with the support from people in power.

The police definitely have to prove their case to kill people in such a large number but when it is necessary they have to act and governments should defend police action.

By Raghu Bhushan Eranki