The rise and fall of encounter cops

The encounter specialists, once a ‘favoured’ lot, are scattered today, blaming one another for their plight, but they are unanimous on one point: they have been ‘used and discarded’ by politicians and the IPS lobby.

The term ‘encounter’ was first used in 1983 when Julio Ribeiro was the police chief. That was when gang wars had shot into the city’s consciousness, with hardened criminals involved in bloody, open feuds. Some like Vardarajan Mudaliar, Amar Naik, Arun Gavli, and Dawood Ibrahim had become so powerful that local police stations could not handle them.

“The underworld was way ahead of the police,” a senior officer said. “It would even plant stories in the media and highlight issues that made them seem like heroes.”

Ribeiro decided to take the criminals head on and chose a few officers to implement his ‘bullet for bullet’ policy. Each team had two encounter specialists, one senior and one junior. Vilas Tupe and Vijay Salaskar, Vishnu Kumbhar and Prakash George, Ashok Bhilare and Dilip Suryavanshi, Yashwant Bhide and Emmanuel Amolik, Ashok Desai and Isak Bagwan were among the early encounter cops.

Over the years they did a splendid job. While the seniors kept a strict watch, they gained the upper hand on the gangsters. As the underworld became more circumspect, the encounter specialists also faded into the background.
In the 1990s a second wave of gang war spilled on to Mumbai’s streets.

The underworld also began targeting film personalities and builders. The stage was set for the revival of the encounter specialists, this time in a more organised manner. “Some were given the job of handling the media, some were asked to mingle with businessmen and film personalities, while others were given the task of making inroads into the underworld,” an officer explained.

Again, the teams met with success. Between 1997 and 2003, they killed more than 600 gangsters. But with poor supervision, groupism and corruption within the IPS, and political patronage, the men became a law unto themselves.
A backlash was inevitable.

The encounter specialists, however, believe that with the underworld on the run, politicians and senior officers do not need them anymore. “That’s why all encounter specialists have been finished off or left to fend for themselves,” said one former officer who is under suspension.