London to Kupwara

There have been atleast 2 incidents around the globe in the past one-week in connection with innocents being victims of police brutality.

The first one in London, where the British police recently shot down an innocent man suspecting him to be connected to the bomb blasts on 7th and 21st of this month. The casualty was a 27-year-old unmarried Brazilian – Jean Charles de Menezes - who was working as an electrician in London for the past 4 years.

After the bombings, the police had put a lot of houses and suspected places under surveillance. One such house was in the locality of Jean, from which he was seen emerging 2 days ago. The police started following him ever since, suspecting him to be connected to the twin bombings. On the fateful day, 22nd July, when Jean was returning from work, he was “challenged” by the police, while he was strolling near the Stockwell railway station. Jean resisted and started running away from the plain clothed policemen. He entered the railway station, and was attempting to escape by boarding a train, when a few policemen bundled on top of him and shot him at point blank range in front of hundreds of passengers. He was shot in the head as well as his body. The passengers described the shootout drama as “Hollywood Style”.

The Brazilian government has reacted strongly to this, and they want an explanation from the British government regarding the circumstances, which lead to Jean’s killing. The British police have termed the incident as “unfortunate” and they have accepted their mistake. The police state that they shot, since Jean started to flee the scene.

In another incident, in our own country, 3 youngsters in the age group of 11-15 were gunned down by the army in Kupwara in Jammu & Kashmir, mistaking them for militants. The 3 were the part of a marriage, which was taking place in the locality. They had ventured out in the night, to have a stroll, and entered an ambush area set up by the army. The army claimed that they had “challenged” the youngsters, who did not respond and started fleeing. The army responded by gunning them down.

There were widespread protests to the killing, with villagers taking out demonstrations and ransacking the police station of their locality. The government has ordered an independent enquiry into the incident. The army said that they had laid an ambush to trap militants who were frequenting the area in the past few days, they added that they resorted to firing only after the youngsters started fleeing.

There is a lot of similarity to both these cases. The police were under a lot of pressure to come out with results, the innocents panicked when confronted by the police and choose to flee the scene in order to escape and the police did not give them a second chance. The killings are the most unfortunate, considering the fact that world-over, it’s an unwritten rule that “Even if hundred of criminals escape the long hand of the law, not even a single innocent should be punished”.

I feel that you should be giving a thought to the other side as well. Scores of people were killed in both the London bombings; everyday there is a terrorist attack somewhere in the country, and who is to prevent all this from happening? – The enforcements. They were doing their duty of protecting and safeguarding the interests of the country where they work. Its true that they should not have resorted to immediate shooting of the suspects; but then we also know that if it were militants in their place, then the situation could have been different. It would have been the policemen and the people around who would have suffered if the suspects had been militants.

My verdict for both these incidents would be to consider these killings as sacrifices made for the war against terrorism. They are unfortunate and should have been avoided, but then so could have been 9/11 or 7/7 or Dec 13. To restrain the militants the police need to be proactive, they need to convey the message to the militants that they will not be dealt with softly. It’s the fear that the terrorists want to implant in the minds of innocents that should be used against them. Implant the same fear in their minds; we might see light at the end of the tunnel.

Some unanswered questions may be – What do you do with militants who have no fear for their lives? What would have happened if the innocent man shot in London was an American?