As many as 183 criminals were gunned down in encounters in the six years of Yogi Adityanath’s government, and this included gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad’s son Asad and his accomplice, who were killed in an exchange of fire in Jhansi, according to the Uttar Pradesh Police.
According to UP Police data, more than 10,900 police encounters have occurred in the state since March 2017, when Adityanath took over as Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister for the first time. These encounters resulted in the arrest of 23,300 alleged criminals and the injury of 5,046 people.
According to the data, 1,443 police officers were injured and 13 were killed.
“As many as 183 criminals have been gunned down in police encounters in the state since March 20, 2017,” said Special Director General of Police (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar.
However, critics of the government and opposition parties have claimed that many of these encounters were “fake” and have called for a high-level investigation to uncover the truth. The UP government and police have denied these claims, claiming that law and order has improved since the BJP took power in 2017.
After Asad and his aide Ghulam were shot dead in Jhansi on Thursday, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati both demanded a thorough investigation.
Both Asad and Ghulam were wanted in February for the daylight murder of Umesh Pal, a key witness in the 2005 killing of then-BSP legislator Raju Pal, and his two security guards in Prayagraj.
“The BJP government is attempting to divert attention away from real issues by staging phoney encounters. The BJP has no faith in the courts. Today’s and other recent encounters should be thoroughly investigated, and the perpetrators should be held accountable. The government has no authority to determine what is right or wrong. The BJP is against brotherhood,” he said in a tweet in Hindi.
Shortly thereafter, Mayawati too demanded a “high-level” investigation to bring out “complete facts and truth” of the incident as “many types of discussions” were happening. She also linked the encounter to Dubey’s killing.
But Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya has congratulated the police on the action.
“If you don’t commit a crime, no one will touch you. And if they commit a crime, no one will be spared “Criminals would be spared, Maurya said, claiming that this was a BJP government, not an SP regime.
The SP released a list on Twitter on Friday, asking if those on it were close to Adityanath. It was claimed that everyone on the list belonged to the chief minister’s caste and were therefore still alive and running criminal gangs.
The party’s media cell, which goes by the handle @MediaCellSP, tweeted: “Are these unique to Yogi Ji? Actually, they all come from the same caste as Yogi Ji. As a result, they are still alive and well, committing crime, running gangs, and engaging in murder, rape, looting, dacoity, and extortion.”
The list included the names of several politicians as well as the alleged number of cases filed against them. Kuldeep Singh Sengar (28 cases in Unnao), Brijesh Singh (106 cases in Varanasi), Dhananjay Singh (46 cases in Jaunpur), and Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias “Raja Bhaiyya” were among them (Pratapgarh, 31 cases).
Some activists have also expressed concern about the high number of police encounters in the state.
The killing of Atiq Ahmad’s son and his aide on Thursday was the seventh under the Prayagraj police commissionerate. It was also the third encounter in the Umesh Pal murder investigation.
