GUWAHATI
A Congress legislator in Assam has advised the State police to learn kabaddi to avoid ‘encounters’ with people who happen to escape from their custody.
Debabrata Saikia, the leader of the Opposition in the 126-member Assembly, took a dig at the Assam police after a few incidents of shooting at alleged extremists.
“The Assam police personnel should undergo training for acquiring kabaddi skills that would help them hold back the arrested accused who try to escape from their grips,” he told journalists on December 25.
Mr. Saikia said extrajudicial killings or encounters to injure people who allegedly tried to escape from custody were illegal as a case about such incidents was being heard by the court.
There have been some 200 “encounters” between the State police and alleged criminals of various shades since May 2021, when the BJP-led government headed by Himanta Biswa Sarma took charge.
In an affidavit on June 20, 2022, the Assam government told the Gauhati High Court that 54 people had been killed in police action since 2021. These included extremists, drug smugglers, murderers, and cattle thieves apart from people accused of other crimes, the government said.
Mr Saikia’s sarcasm followed the injury of at least five people in three incidents of police firing on December 24 and 25. The incidents happened in eastern Assam’s Sadiya and Titabor and central Assam’s Salmara.
The police claimed all four were linked to the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent) and were injured in controlled firing after they attempted to flee from their custody.
The ULFA (I) said the police carried out fake encounters with people not connected to the outfit. Akhil Gogoi, MLA and president of Raijor Dal, also said the encounters were staged.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the police ordered a probe into the reported suicide of a youth named Dipankar Gogoi, a day after he was questioned in connection with a grenade blast in eastern Assam’s Jorhat a few days ago.
“An inquiry has been ordered by @assampolice Hq to be conducted by IGP Eastern Range into the incident, including the procedural part, analysing the CCTV footage of police station, contents of report of medical examination at the time of release after questioning etc,” Director General of Police GP Singh wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
