Encounter killing
Encounter killings, often simply referred to as encounters, is a euphemism used in India and Pakistan to refer to extrajudicial killings by security forces. The officers typically described the incidents as a shootout situation, often allegedly starting when a criminal grabs for the gun of a police officer. The term encounter came into widespread use for such incidents in the late 20th century.
Critics are sceptical of the police motivation behind many of these reported incidents, and further complain that the wide acceptance of the practice has led to incidents of the police staging encounters to conceal the killing of suspects when they are either already in custody or are unarmed or have surrendered. Such instances are called fake encounters. In some cases, surrendered criminals are shot in the leg as an extrajudicial punishment; these are called half encounters.
Sometimes police officers are also killed in such incidents, although relatively rarely. Over a two-year period in Uttar Pradesh, for example, encounters reportedly resulted in the death of 103 alleged criminals and 5 police officers. Several individual police officers have reportedly been involved in more than 100 killings in encounters, and Pradeep Sharma was reportedly involved in more than 300.
In the 1990s and the mid-2000s, the Mumbai Police used encounter killings to attack the city's underworld, and the practice spread to other large cities. In Pakistan, the Sindh Police are notorious for extrajudicial killings through fake encounters, especially in Karachi.
In the six years between 2016/2017 and 2021/2022, a case of encounter killing has been registered once every three days in India, with 813 such cases of encounter killings, according to National Human Rights Commission of India data. There were no convictions of any officials involved in these killings during that period.
In India
| Andhra Pradesh | 11 |
| Arunachal Pradesh | 14 |
| Assam | 79 |
| Bihar | 25 |
| Chhattisgarh | 259 |
| Goa | 0 |
| Gujarat | 2 |
| Haryana | 16 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 1 |
| Jharkhand | 52 |
| Karnataka | 6 |
| Kerala | 9 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 8 |
| Maharashtra | 33 |
| Manipur | 12 |
| Meghalaya | 18 |
| Mizoram | 0 |
| Nagaland | 1 |
| Odisha | 40 |
| Punjab | 8 |
| Rajasthan | 12 |
| Sikkim | 1 |
| Tamil Nadu | 11 |
| Telangana | 8 |
| Tripura | 3 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 110 |
| Uttaranchal | 1 |
| West Bengal | 21 |
| Andaman and Nicobar | 1 |
| Chandigarh | 0 |
| Dadra and Nagar Haveli | 0 |
| Daman and Diu | 0 |
| Delhi | 9 |
| Jammu and Kashmir | 45 |
| Ladakh | 0 |
| Lakshadweep | 0 |
| Puducherry | 0 |
The term encounter killing came into popular use in India since the late 20th century following a very high frequency of such killings by police in cities including Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Ghaziabad. Some of the killings have been controversial, and critics have alleged that the police created 'fake encounters' as opportunities to kill suspects.
According to the National Human Rights Commission of India, there were many cases of alleged fake encounters:
;2002–2008
440 cases. States with high number of cases were: Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
;October 2009 – February 2013
555 cases. States with high number of cases were: Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Assam, West Bengal and Jharkhand.
Andhra Pradesh
The first recorded encounter killing was Alluri Sitarama Raju, who was a local hero in the Rampa Rebellion of 1922. The police of Nizam of Hyderabad passed on some traditions of police execution to the state of Andhra Pradesh at independence in 1947. During the Telangana movement, the state government used encounter killing as the explanation for killing more than 3000 people. From the 1960s, the culture of using encounter killings has developed into a tolerated practice.Maharashtra
On 11 January 1982, the gangster Manya Surve was shot dead by police officers Raja Tambat and Isaque Bagwan at the Wadala area. This is often referred to as the city's first recognised encounter killing. From that period until early 2003, the police killed 1,200 alleged criminals.Members of the Mumbai Police involved in these killings became widely known as 'encounter specialists', and several became well known to the public in India, including:
| Name | Designation | Encounter killings | Source | Note |
| Pradeep Sharma | Inspector | 312 | He once remarked "Criminals are filth and I'm the cleaner". He was accused of having staged the encounter of Ram Narayan Gupta and suspended in 2009–10; however, he was acquitted by the court in 2013. | |
| Daya Nayak | Inspector | 83 | ||
| Praful Bhosale | Inspector | 77 | ||
| Ravindranath Angre | Inspector | 54 | ||
| Sachin Waze | Assistant Inspector | 63 | Resigned from service, later joined Shivsena | |
| Vijay Salaskar | Inspector | 61 | Killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks |
Punjab
The term 'police encounter' was used often during the Punjab insurgency between 1984 and 1995. During this time, Punjab police officials reported 'encounters' to local newspapers and to the family members of those killed. The victim was typically a person whom the police believed to be a militant or involved in the militant separatist movement; proof of alleged militant involvement was rarely given. Ultimately, the practice became so common that 'encounter' became synonymous with extrajudicial execution.It is alleged that police typically take a suspected militant into custody without filing an arrest report. If the suspect dies during interrogation, security forces would deny ever taking the person into custody and instead claim that he was killed during an armed encounter, placing weapons on or near the body to suggest the police acted in self-defence.
Sukhwinder Singh Bhatti, a criminal defence attorney in Punjab who defended such suspects, disappeared in May 1994 and is alleged to have been killed by the police.
Jaswant Singh Khalra garnered global attention for his research concerning 25,000 illegal killings and cremations involving the Punjab police, and that the police had even killed about 2,000 police officers who refused to cooperate. On 6 September 1995, while he was washing his car in front of his house, Khalra was abducted by personnel of Punjab Police and taken to Jhabal Police Station. Although witnesses gave statements implicating the police, and named Director General of the Punjab Police, Kanwar Pal Singh Gill as a conspirator, police have denied ever arresting or detaining Khalra. Further, the police have claimed to have had no knowledge of his whereabouts.
The Ensaaf organization has mapped 5,298 enforced disappearances or extrajudicial executions in the state of Punjab in India, with the majority of cases occurring in the late 1980's and early 1990's.
Rajasthan
On 20 July 2020, a special Central Bureau of Investigation court in Mathura convicted 11 policemen, including former deputy Superintendent of Police Kan Singh Bhati in former MLA Raja Man Singh's murder case. Raja Man Singh was killed along with his two supporters in a fake police encounter in February 1985.Gujarat
Between 2002 and 2006, 22 police encounter killings were reported in Gujarat. According to the NHRC figures, during 2002–2007, there were four alleged fake encounters in Gujarat. These cases gained national media attention:- Sadiq Jamal
- Ishrat Jahan case
- Sohrabuddin Sheikh case
- Tulsiram Prajapati case
Uttar Pradesh
Other notable cases
, the notorious forest brigand, was reportedly killed by the Special Task Force Headed by K Vijay Kumar in an encounter on 18 October 2004. Some human rights organisations claimed that the circumstantial evidence indicated that he was killed in a fake encounter after being tortured by the police.On 19 September 2008, Delhi-police Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, a decorated officer, and two suspects were killed in the Batla House encounter case in New Delhi. The encounter led to the arrest of two suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorists, while a third managed to escape. The Shahi Imam of the Jama Masjid termed the encounter as 'totally fake"' and accused the government of harassing Muslims. Several political parties and activists demanded a probe into the allegations that the encounter was fake. After an investigation, the National Human Rights Commission cleared the Delhi Police personnel of any violations of human rights. While sections of the media still oppose the ruling and believe the police to be culprits, a video clip that surfaced in 2016 featured a confession from the terrorist who had escaped the encounter, about how he managed to do so and later join the ISIS, further confirming the credibility of the encounter.
An alleged 'encounter' in 1991, led to the 2016 sentencing of 47 policemen to life imprisonment for the slaying of 11 Sikh pilgrims in the Pilibhit district of Uttar Pradesh.
In 2019, all four men accused in the 2019 Hyderabad gang rape were killed in a police encounter on 6 December 2019. Police alleged that one of four had gestured to the other three to flee after attacking the cops, that the four tried to run towards a deserted pathway, and that the cops opened fire in self-defense.