Encounter Killings By Police
An encounter is a euphemism used in South Asia especially in India to describe extrajudicial killings in which police or armed forces shoot down suspected gangsters and terrorists in gun battles.
A fake encounter or a "staged encounter" happens when the police or armed forces kill the suspects in custody or when the suspects are unarmed, and then claim that the victims were killed in an encounter when the police had to shoot in self-defence. In such cases, the weapons may be planted on or near the dead body to provide a justification for killing the individual. To explain for the discrepancy between records that show that the individual was in police custody at the time of his "encounter", the police may state that the suspect had escaped. Such killings are not authorized by a court or by the law.
In the 1990s and the mid-2000s, the Mumbai Police in India used the encounter killing to cripple the underworld in the city and bust the rampant extortion racket. The police officers, who came to be known as "Encounter Specialists", believed that these killings delivered speedy justice, but were criticized by the human rights activists.
Read more about Encounter Killings By Police: In India, In Popular Culture
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