Hyderabad encounter specialist delivers instant ‘justice’, becomes a hero

V.C. Sajjanar, the commissioner of police of Cyberabad, who is in charge of law and order in the areas surrounding Hyderabad city, has become a hero for women demanding justice for the 26-year-old victim of gang rape and murder. This is because of the encounter killing of the four men accused of gang raping and burning alive the veterinary doctor. The encounter took place in the early hours of Friday under his jurisdiction and supervision. Sajjanar is known as an encounter specialist.

Sajjanar, a 1996 batch IPS officer in the rank of Inspector General in Telangana police, is known for his “instant justice delivery” methods. On 13 December 2008, Sajjanar executed a similar encounter of three youths who threw acid on the faces of two girl students in Warangal. Sajjanar was the superintendent of police of Warangal district at the time. It took the police three days to arrest the three youths—S. Srinivasa Rao, P. Harikrishna and B. Sanjay—who attacked with acid two BTech students, Swapnika and Praneetha, who had just came out of their college in Warangal city. Swapnika spurned the advances of Srinivasa Rao who took the help of the other two to execute the acid attack. Two days later, Swapnika died of injuries sustained.

The incident caused ripples across the country at a time when a series of similar acid attacks were taking place. The entire Warangal was up in arms against the culprits and demanded stern action against them. Sajjanar, as the SP, was at the receiving end of public anger.

The Warangal police arrested the three accused and later shot them dead in an alleged exchange of fire between them and the policemen in the early hours of 13 December 2008. Then too the youth were stated to have tried to escape by snatching the policemen’s weapons. The killing of the three acid attackers was hailed by women in particular and the public at large all over the country.

Sajjanar, as intelligence chief three years ago, “encountered” another notorious gangster, Mohammad Nayeem, a Naxalite-turned-extortionist in Telangana. It was on a tip-off from the victims of Nayeem—who had amassed wealth around Rs 1,000 crore—that the police, under the supervision of Sajjanar, shot dead the gangster.

In the present case, too, several people, mostly girl students, urged Sajjanar on social media to eliminate the four rapists and murderers just as he had done with other criminals in the past. “Sajjanar Sir, what are you waiting for? Please kill the rapists by using his powerful weapon (service revolver) instead of feeding them with biryani in jail,” said a netizen on Facebook.

Sajjanar, who held a media conference on Friday evening, simply said that the four accused of the victim’s murder tried to escape from the police party in the early hours because of which his men had to open fire in self defence and kill them. “Law will take its own course and we will not spare whoever tries to take the law in their hands,” he said in reply to questions.

Sajjanar’s “instant justice” delivery was hailed by leaders of all political parties, while some of them tried to own up the act. Andhra Pradesh Agriculture Minister Kanna Babu said that “Sajjanar was empowered to deliver instant justice in 2008 by then Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy when two girls were acid-attacked by miscreants. Telangana police are following our leader late YSR’s line, good,” said the minister.

Even BSP leader Mayawati hailed Sajjnar’s team. She said that the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh was worsening by the day and the UP police should learn from their counterparts in Telangana. The cops were complimented in the Lok Sabha too on Friday.

There are other instances of instant justice in the erstwhile combined Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. In 2007, Manisha, a 10-year-old girl, was kidnapped and killed by some miscreants in Warangal city and Soumya Mishra, the then SP, faced angry protests. Then four youth were arrested and killed in an encounter within no time after they were caught.

In another similar incident in Telangana, terrorist Vikaruddin Ahmed and four other accused were shot dead by the police at Bhongir on 8 April 2015, when they tried to escape. They were being brought from Warangal to a court in Hyderabad. All these incidents of encounter killing earned the cops some praise, while others termed them as extra-judicial killings.