A wanted criminal was shot dead in an encounter with the Uttar Pradesh Police in Kaushambi district today. The criminal has been identified as Gufran, who was wanted in multiple cases of murder and dacoity.
According to the UP Police, a special task force team was conducting a raid in Kaushambi district. Gufran was confronted by the team and opened fire following which the cops retaliated, and in the ensuing cross-firing, he was shot and injured. Gufran was taken to a hospital for treatment, where he succumbed to his injuries.
Gufran was wanted in over 13 cases including murder, attempted murder, and robbery in Pratapgarh and other districts of Uttar Pradesh. The UP Police had placed a bounty of ₹ 1,00,000 for this capture.
This is the latest in a series of encounters between UP Police and criminals. The UP Police data showed that since Yogi Adityanath became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2017, there have been over 10,900 encounters, in which over 185 criminals have been killed and this included gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad’s son Asad and his accomplice, who were killed in an exchange of fire in Jhansi.
In these encounters, 23,300 alleged criminals were arrested and 5,046 were injured. The number of policemen injured in them was 1,443 and 13 were killed, the data showed.
However, the critics of the government and opposition parties have alleged that many of these encounters were “fake” and demanded a high-level probe to bring out the facts. The UP government and the police have denied these allegations and said law and order have improved since the BJP came to power in 2017.
“Nobody will touch you if you don’t commit a crime. And nobody will be spared if they commit a crime,” Maurya said, asserting that this was a BJP government and not an SP regime that criminals would be spared.
Some activists too have raised questions over the high number of police encounters in the state.
“We are of the view that the National Human Rights Commission has some guidelines on police encounters. And there should be a magisterial probe as per the guidelines of the NHRC. It will make the picture clear,” Lenin Raghuvanshi, the founder-convenor of the People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights, told the news agency.
(With inputs from agencies)
