A PLEA has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking direction for a CBI or NIA probe, supervised by the top court, into the alleged killing of three under-trial prisoners in Uttar Pradesh’s Chitrakoot district jail. The plea filed by Supreme Court lawyer Anoop Prakash Awasthi has also sought fixing accountability and taking appropriate action against those found responsible. Direction for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into all extra-judicial killings that took place since March 18, 2017, in Uttar Pradesh after Yogi Adityanath took over charge of the State as Chief Minister was also sought by the petition.

 

On May 14, three under trial prisoners, including a member of BSP MLA Mukhtar Ansari’s group, were shot dead inside the Chitrakoot district jail after which the Uttar Pradesh Government suspended two jail officials. The three inmates gunned down in the district jail at Ragauli were identified by police as Anshu Dixit, Merazuddin alias Meraj Ali and Mukeem Kala, belonging to Sitapur, Ghazipur and Shamli districts, respectively, in Uttar Pradesh. The plea alleged that in a mature, civilised, democratic and rule of the law based country like India, history of violence should be remembered and not repeated, but in Uttar Pradesh, a battle is being fought in its jails where the police, under the direct orders of the top of the administration is summarily executing the prisoners on frivolous excuses. “…this culture of violence promoted in the State of UP (Uttar Pradesh) militates against the basic notion of the rule of law where violence has become a collective enterprise to portray the authority of the Government and obscure its failures,” it said. The plea said that the biggest worry qua the extra-judicial killings if gone unchecked is that the life of any citizen can be taken anytime by state agencies.

 

“Any enmity or private dispute or quest of settling private score may lead to filing of few criminal cases in some police station against the undesired person, branding him a dreaded criminal within days, to be taken into custody as under trial, and fellow may be eliminated by being shot anytime anywhere by the police/law enforcement authorities on any false pretext like attempt of snatching a rifle or pistol of a fellow police personnel during transportation or even inside the jail”, it said.