Encounter

The inhuman act of rape and brutal murder of Hyderabad doctor sent a shockwave throughout the country. The common sentiment was to hang them in public. The  act of the accused is undoubtedly most heinous and needs to be condemned severely. The act of Hyderabad police however is unconstitutional, illegal and subject to independent judicial inquiry. 

It is the duty of the police to immediately lodge the FIR in case of information about cognisance offence and conduct investigation within the framework of the constitution. The police after completion of the investigation files the charge sheet in the court whereupon the trial is commenced . The evidence collected by the police is evaluated, witnesses are examined by the courts and thereafter judgement is pronounced. The prosecution has to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt for the courts to convict the accused. The court has to be satisfied that excruciating circumstances exists for it to execute the convict and only then punishment of death is pronounced in rarest of rare cases. 

The prosecution in order to prove its case has to rely entirely upon the investigation conducted by the police. Therefore , for accused to be convicted it is imperative for the police to conduct fair and impregnable investigation. The act of Hyderabad police raises a gamut of questions rather than answering any. For instance what were the police doing with the prisoners at the spot at such ungodly hours. Had they taken them for spot identification were the the panchas present for conducting spot Panchanama?, were the accused armed or were they in a position to escape the police , how many police were present and could they have overpowered the accused without killing them. The list of questions is endless. The Hyderabad police by killing the alleged accused have simply reduced their work since they won’t have to conduct tedious investigation into the matter which saves them lot of work load. The moot question that now arises since there is going to be no investigation on the rape an d murder case is that in the absence of identification of the accused we can never know beyond reasonable doubt if the persons killed by the police under the guise of encounter were the same persons who committed the gruesome act or did the police kill someone else. We may debate over this in our public and private conversations but may never know it for sure in the absence of investigation. 

Hyderabad police has set a dangerous precedence thereby insulting the fairness of the judicial setup and is dangerous to the constitution .The fear that now strikes is that the police now has license to kill persons to reduce their work of investigation. We have to be cautious since today it has happened to them , tomorrow it may happen to either of us and inevitably to persons belonging to social and economically distressed classes. 

Personal is political:What Nisha Pise's death taught us.

One of the most lively, extrovert and fearless journalist from our very own Pimpri Chinchwad took her own life. Her suicidal death has sent a shock wave throughout legal as well as media community. 

She is being poured with condolence messages, yet there exists a thought as to why a crime beat journalist should take her own life. One of the main causes of her death is being attributed to domestic violence. However, for many of us this is a hard pill to swallow. It is being presumed that being a crime reporter she was well aware of her legal rights and legal machinery and she ought to have used it instead of taking her own life. 

However, here we fail to understand that there is a huge difference in being aware of ones legal rights and being able to execute them. We do place immense importance to the extent of pressure on the instituion of marriage. The pressure exceeds more upon women and they take everything that there is to maintain the institution. Women are known to mold themselves much against their own will to become into something they aren't, only to maintain the institution of marriage. 

When we come across an unfortunate woman who had to take her life owing to the matrimonial disputes we are quick to dismiss the act saying why she did not take matters in her own hands at the very first instance of domestic abuse, thus completely undermining the legal set up of our country which has many laws in the favor of women and social set up which cripples them for taking recourse to legal action. Also, when we come across women who take to legal recourse in domestic abuse, we are eager to accuse her for misusing the legal provisions. Many a times when women do find courage to approach the police, the cases against them are not registered by saying that it is a domestic issue and in many cases if the woman is persistent the police lodge a simple case of non-cognizable offence against the offenders. The Women Protection Cell constituted for dealing with criminal acts in domestic sphere is completely against the spirit and letter of Criminal law which mandates registering of FIR in case of cognizable offences. 

There is a need for sentisization of Police, Executive, Legislature, Judicial system. There is also a massive need for such sentisisation of our collective mindset which treats a matrimonial dispute as 'Ghar ka mamala'. Such a change is necessary wherein the economics of our times is changing and is inevitably changing domestic relations. 

Afterall, Personal is Political. 

(This write up is dedicated to the unfortunate souls who are a victim of domestic abuse and also to all the brave hearts who battle domestic abuse.)