An investigation found that police in India's most populous state have repeatedly shot suspects in the leg, many of them Muslims accused of cow smuggling MEERUT, India -- The police videos follow a predictable script: A man shot in the lower leg hobbles through darkness as officers escort him away. Police across India’s most populous state have shot hundreds of suspects in near-identical encounters that often target Muslims accused of cow smuggling, an offense closely tied to cow protection laws rooted in Hindu religious belief, according to an investigation. Police have publicized the shootings as part of a broad crackdown on crime and characterize them as acts of self-defense.
Activists, opposition leaders and local judges, however, say the violence amounts to extrajudicial punishment and intimidation that disproportionately impacts India’s large Muslim minority, and undermines the rule of law in the world’s largest democracy. Its findings were shared exclusively with the AP, which independently reviewed a sample of more than 200. The overwhelming majority of cases involved Muslims, the center found.
In case after case, bullets struck the same part of the suspect’s body — the leg, most often below the knee. This reporting is based only on incidents police themselves publicized and almost certainly represents an undercount. Amitabh Yash, a senior Uttar Pradesh police official, told the AP that police are instructed to respond only in self-defense, and said police in his state have killed and injured far fewer suspects, per capita, than police in the United States.
Yash said there is no order to shoot suspects in the leg and added that he would investigate the consistent pattern of injuries if an appropriate complaint were lodged. Every action is open to scrutiny, whether it is a death or an injury,” he said. It is deployed against suspects accused of cow smuggling as well as other crimes, including theft and rape.
Cattle smuggling is an offense that carries particular weight in India, where cows are revered by many Hindus and cow protection has been politically charged. India has a long history of so-called encounter killings, in which police shoot and kill a suspect often under dubious circumstances. Some activists argue that police have evolved their strategy, shooting to injure instead of kill in what are known locally as “half encounters,” to spark less public outcry.
The violence has unfolded alongside a political push for tougher policing under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his allies in Uttar Pradesh, who have promoted a “zero tolerance” policy against criminals to instill fear and promote law and order. Uttar Pradesh is led by Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu monk-turned-politician and a senior leader of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. From the time Adityanath took office as chief minister in March 2017 through Oct. 13 of this year, 316 suspects were killed in encounters and 110 of them were Muslim, according to state police data obtained by the AP.
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