UP pays Rs 5 lakh after NHRC calls man’s encounter ‘execution’

The rights panel recently got a compliance report from the state that the father of the man,a resident of Paani ki Tanki village in Gautambudh Nagar,has been paid a sum of Rs five lakh,official sources said.

The incident took place when Yakub and one of his associates were fleeing on a motorcycle allegedly looted from a man along with his gold chain and Rs 7,000 in cash.

According to police,a team of police personnel chased them and asked them to surrender but they started firing,forcing the police to return fire,killing Yakub.

A magisterial inquiry had accepted the police version,but the NHRC,while noting that Yakub was indeed one of the two persons who was involved in the robbery,raised questions over the encounter,the sources said.

The commission had pointed out that the police did not claim that the firing took place at close range. “However,the postmortem report shows that all five entry wounds on the body of the deceased had signs not only of blackening but also of tattooing which takes place when a shot is fired from within a range of three feet.

“It is clear from the forensic evidence that instead of this being a genuine encounter,the police fired five shots into the body of late Yakub from extremely close range. This was therefore not an encounter but an execution by police,which is illegal and the most grievous violation of human rights,” it had said.

The government of UP had argued that there was no justification for grant of relief as the magisterial probe has not found any policeman guilty,but the rights body dismissed that saying,”magisterial inquiries assist the commission in its examination of cases,but do not bind it.”

“When the inquiry is thorough and the conclusions flow logically from an analysis of the evidence…the commission accepts its recommendations. When the commission finds lacunae that fundamentally calls an inquiry’s findings into question,it records in details its reasons for disagreeing with them,” it said.