Encounter, Not Accident: Questions as Uttar Pradesh Police Revise Statement After Medical Officer Cries Foul

Lucknow: A statement of an emergency medical officer (EMO) at the district hospital in Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh has landed Uttar Pradesh Police in troubled waters.

Speaking to reporters, EMO Mukesh Kumar in a statement on November 30 said, "Mohammed Parvez was brought to us in an injured condition. He had sustained bullet injuries on the right buttock. His condition is critical and will be referred to a higher centre. Police have been repeatedly pointing out that it's a case of road traffic accident. But during medical examination it was revealed it was a bullet injury."

Later, the Azamgarh police said that the injured victim Mohammed Parvez was a suspect in a 'cow trafficking' case and was shot multiple times in an alleged police 'encounter'. According to police, Parvez had sustained at least two to three bullet injuries and his condition is still critical.

However, the encounter claim has led to several questions. Why was police trying to misrepresent the cause of injuries sustained by Parvez? How did Parvez, who was supposed to be sitting in an SUV during the encounter, manage to sustain a bullet injury in the buttock during an exchange of fire with the police?

Anil Kumar, superintendent of police of Azamgarh, claimed that Parvez was a gang kingpin of the gang. According to Kumar, members of Parvez's gang were armed with weapons to give cover to vehicles smuggling cattle and ensure their safe passage till they crossed the Bihar border, roughly 100 kilometres from Azamgarh.

"Parvez was in one of the SUVs giving cover to the container. When we tried to stop it, Pervez opened indiscriminate fire at the police. In the retaliatory fire, we shot at the tyre of the SUV but it managed to veer away while police followed the truck. The SUV, meanwhile, came to a halt after the tyre came off and it could not go any further. Everyone except Pervez managed to flee," SP Kumar told The Wire.

When asked why police insisted on filing it as a case of road traffic accident instead of an encounter, SP Kumar said, "Parvez himself alerted the police, claiming he had met with an accident. He made the same claim to highway staffers and an ambulance driver who had attended him at the spot. He was later taken to the hospital. The police began connecting the dots and landed at the hospital to enquire about a road accident victim. Doctors there had already done the primary medical examination and claimed it was a case of bullet injury. Police told the doctors that the victim had issued a false alert about a road accident. This was the confusion."

SP Kumar was also asked who Parvez, who was sitting in the SUV and firing indiscriminately at the police, happened to be shot at twice in his right buttock in retaliatory fire.

"We are trying to medically ascertain if the firearm injury on the back was an entry or exit wound. It was a typical Bollywood-style hot chase. He was firing indiscriminately and trying to escape. If the police vehicle is on the left, he will get hit on the left side. If the police is chasing him from behind and he is turning backwards to fire at the police, he will get hit in the back," SP Kumar said. There is, so far, no clarity on this question yet.

UP police are known to be trigger-happy and have been questioned on encounters. In October this year, a government doctor in Shamli district had claimed that police bring in suspects with at least 20 bullet wounds and force medical practitioners to fabricate medical reports to record only one.

As per official data, in over the past eight and a half years, at least 256 suspects have been killed in police 'encounters'. In the total 15,726 encounters during this time, 31,960 criminals were arrested and 10,324 sustained injuries.

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