15 police encounters in two days in Yogi's UP
What's the story
As many as 24 criminals were arrested and one gangster was killed in 15 police encounters across 10 districts in Uttar Pradesh. In all the cases, police claimed to have recovered countrymade arms, ammunition, apart from cash robbed by the criminals. The encounters come amid concerns over rise in their number in the state under Yogi Adityanath's regime. Here's more on this.
Background
Adityanath's vow to bring down crime rate
After taking office last year, responding to criticism that BJP government failed to check crime rate in the state, UP CM Yogi Adityanath said, "Agar apradh karenge toh thok diye jayenge (if they commit crimes, they will be taken down)." The state police have since been on a violent crackdown with over 920 encounters where 31 criminals were gunned down, as of January 2018.
NHRC unimpressed
NHRC seeks a detailed report over encounters
Late last year, taking note of the official statistics, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) sought a detailed report from the UP government over increased number of encounter killings. It remarked, "Even if the law and order situation is grave, the state cannot resort to such mechanism, which may result in the extra-judicial killings of the alleged criminals."
Fresh crackdown
Details of latest encounters
In the turn of latest events involving 15 encounters in 48 hrs, gangster Indrapal, with Rs. 25,000 bounty on his head, was gunned down by the police in an encounter in Naglakhepad jungle, Muzaffarnagar, on 2 Feb. Indrapal had 33 criminal cases pending against him. Apart from this, 24 were arrested from encounters across Bulandshahr, Shamli, Kanpur, Saharanpur, Lucknow, Baghpat, Gorakhpur, Hapur, and Meerut.