Make police liable for killing protesters
The State must protect its citizens and not murder them when they protest against corruption in the government. But when the police murder their citizens, acting at the behest of the State, those who are murdered will never get redress whether at Tuticorin on May 22, in Andhra Pradesh in 2015 or in Mumbai when 900 citizens were massacred in the 1992-93 riots.
This is why the deputy tehsildar, who ordered a man in a yellow T-shirt to shoot innocent protesters at Tuticorin, killing 13 of them on May 22 should be tried for murder. But he will get off with a minor reprimand. The Tamil Nadu government has already saved its face by closing down the Sterlite copper smelting plant for good. So, those murdered can be forgotten.
The 243rd Law Commission of India recommended Parliament to enact a law to prevent police torture but forgot about making the State liable when the police shoot protesters without warning. The ambit of a few sections of the Indian Penal Code has been widened. Like the judiciary, the police cannot be prosecuted without State sanction when they discharge their duty, which may include killing those who protest.
It is only a magistrate who can issue orders to open fire. He can delegate his power to the collector, tehsildar or zonal tehsildar during an emergency. But a government order has to be passed and no bureaucrat will dare order to shoot-and-kill innocent Tamilians in Tuticorin who could have been controlled with tear gas and rubber bullets which the police lacked.
Hence, the deputy tehsildar usurped powers he did not have. During a sting by a news channel, he confessed to the reporter that he had killed innocent people which means criminal intent. The gruesome deaths included an unarmed priest who was shot in the hip and died in hospital, fuelling talk on news channels that the church had a hand in the riots.
The police use brutality because they know documents will cooked up later to protect them as in the case of the so-called “encounter killings” in Mumbai during the 1980s when gangsters were killed in cold blood and guns planted next to their bodies after midnight to fool journalists. A few encounter specialists were part-time drug peddlers who were protected by the State government.
Protests over the Sterlite plant in Tuticorin took place on March 29. People from all walks of life earlier supported the villagers from Kumarattiyapuram village because of noxious gas leaks and bad effluent management for over 20 years, which blatantly flouts their right to life guaranteed by Article 21. The owner of the plant was supposed to be close to the powers that be, which was why he was allowed to expand the plant despite flouting rules.
The right to protest under Article 19(1) (a to c) is a fundamental right which is concomitant with the right to life and liberty under Article 21. This declares that nobody can be deprived of life except after following the due procedure laid down by law which the lawless deputy tehsildar flouted with impunity in Tuticorin.
Hence, the right to life remains in the realm of academics, proved by the 900 murders during the 1992-93 riots in Mumbai, when the Shiv Sena got a free hand. The Srikrishna Commission indicted the Shiv Sena but nothing came of it just as police sub inspector Manohar Kadam was acquitted by the Bombay high court for killing ten persons during the Dalit riots to protest the garlanding of Ambedkar’s statue with chappals on July 11, 1997. He opened fire without warning.
In 2009, the Mumbai sessions court sentenced Kadam of the state reserve police to life in jail for "homicide amounting to murder of the ten innocent persons." The Bombay high court promptly acquitted Kadam on the strange logic that he did not have a grudge against anybody in the mob and did not use a rifle himself when he ordered his policemen to open fire on unarmed Dalits. This absurd defence can be used by all policemen who kill unarmed citizens.
On 7 April 2015, the Andhra Pradesh police shot 20 woodcutters in the Seshachalam forest in Chittoor district, on the charge that a 100-strong mob of "sandalwood smugglers" attacked the police with sickles, rods and axes — although not a single policeman was hurt. Human rights activists said some bodies were burnt and others had bullet injuries on the chest and head. Witnesses deposed the police forced the victims to alight from a bus and shot them in cold blood. Not a single policeman was convicted.
So, the right to protest is only theoretical because any government official, including a deputy tehsildar who has never ever seen a gun, can order the police to kill protesters. He is secure in the knowledge that the state government will protect him. And even, if by mischance, he is convicted by a sessions court like PSI Kadam who killed ten persons and grievously injured 26 others, he can approach the high court with bright chances of being acquitted. After all, he is acting in the line of duty. That is nationalism for you.
It is only a magistrate who can issue orders to open fire. He can delegate his power to the collector, tehsildar or zonal tehsildar during an emergency.
The writer holds a PhD in law and is a lawyer-cum-journalist of the Bombay high court.