A wag was asked, " why do police encounters at scenes of crime happen only in the early hours after midnight? "
"bcoz reconstruction of crime is best done in light "
" so why night ? "
" well, during day it is 'dark' that is most in bold relief, whereas at night one 'sees' light clearly, even better with criminals not blocking the view "
On to a serious note. Now that dust is settling on the mass euphoria over encounter killing of Hyderabad rapists soon after the crime one needs to sit in sober contemplation. Why this manic swing in public sentiment, from hysterical rage to unrestrained elation, and what does it hold for the future ?
A crime is not an act against God or one that prickles our sense of fair play the wrong way. Though criminal jurisprudence couches crime in obfuscating legalese, in essence, it is a violation of our collective consciousness; and punishment for a crime, a reparation for it, to put it bluntly, retribution, an eye for an eye. All talk of punishment as deterrence against crime (if it were so the world would have been free of crimes long ago), or a penance at the end of which a 'thieving' Valmiki reforms to a 'Ramayana' Valmiki is self delusional.
In this instance the collective consciousness was rightly exercised and it cried for recompense. Nothing sinister, only a diagnostic symptom for restoring societal health just as a fever is elemental to treating a diseased body.
But the hedonism on display holds some disturbing portents. Is the police an instrument to instantaneously deliver recompense to an outraged 'common' consciousness's baying for blood rendering judicial processes superfluous , reducing judiciary to a sinecure, blurring the distinction between a lynch mob and cop ? Is a 'common's rage' a Mafame Defarge knitting names of 'criminals' for feeding cops' 'encounter guillotines', a la "A tale of two cities" ?
No civilized society will countenance such a state of affairs - one institution ascertaining collective consciousness to determine a crime, investigating, sentencing and executing the sentence all by itself. That happens only in Hitlerian regimes.
But I have a more fundamental objection. Extra judicial killing is not the best way to sate collective conscience.
"Thus a man will suffer half an hour of mortal fear with a robber, but once the knife is finally at his throat, even fear vanishes" Fyodor Dostoyevsky, "Crime and Punishment"
Between taking the rapists out to the crime spot and the encounter killing rapists spent less than 4 hours in morbid fear of death. Then finis ! Permanent deliverance from all fear. Their families will mourn awhile but will soon reconcile to changed circumstances and adapt their lives accordingly.
What if they were tried and went through the grind of our exasperatingly tortuous, tormenting and frustrating judicial procedure? Whether in jail or on bail they along with their families would have lived in perpetual dread of death, died every living moment of it. Would not collective consciousness have then been more amply recompensed ? Even if some had gotten scot free, courtesy lack of evidence, they would have already spent every minute of some ten years or so that the proceedings
lasted in living death.
Therefore, public outcries for instant extra-judicial reparation are a sentimental folly. If cops succumb to these outcries they do immense disservice to the collective consciousness.
Criminals escape conviction due to shoddy, botched up investigation that fails to collect and present clinching evidence , or cops themselves being in cahoots with criminals , or compromising cases for considerations beyond the call of duty. Encounter killings serve cops in two ways- covering up their investigative incapacities and earning public accolade .
No police academy churns out Encounter Specialists, let not common folk do it !
