UP police change approach to encounters, opt to fire at legs

KANPUR: Twenty-nine alleged criminals have been shot in their legs at almost identical spots, between the knees and ankles, in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur over the last four months. HT has seen the medical reports and photographs in connection with 24 such cases.

A police officer familiar with the matter said alleged criminals are now being shot below their abdomens, preferably in the legs, under a new tactic that has come to be known as so-called “halfencounters”. The tactic appears to have been adopted to counter criticism that the police have faced over a spate of alleged extrajudicial killing of criminals since 2017.

Shooting below abdomen is part of the standard operating procedure adopted in situations wherein criminals may be shooting at police. Activists say it is difficult to determine whether the “half-encounters” have been even carried in non-threatening situations as most of these incidents have taken place between midnight and 4am.

An alleged criminal was last week taken to a pre-decided point marked with “crime scene, do not cross” warning tapes in Kanpur before he was shot at and taken to a hospital in the middle of the night, according to another police officer aware of the incident.

Gautam Buddh Nagar tops the list of the so-called “half-encounters” with 120 such cases. Most of them have been mostly reported in the last few months, according to police officers aware of these incidents. Meerut has the highest number of “half-encounters” – 255 – among police zones. Meerut district accounted for 79 “half-encounters” while 66 such cases were reported from Ghaziabad, Allahabad, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, and Agra.

THE TACTIC APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN ADOPTED TO COUNTER CRITICISM COPS FACE OVER A SPATE OF ENCOUNTER DEATHS IN THE STATE