Uttarakhand Fake encounter: Delhi High Court punishes seven police for life imprisonment

Dehradun, February 6: Fake encounter criminal case ongoing from 2009 saw a verdict from The Delhi High Court that is awarding life terms to seven policemen for killing a 22-year-old MBA student in a staged shootout in Dehradun.

The High Court ruled that a "fake encounter has no place in legal system". "A fake encounter is a form of extrajudicial killing which has no place in a legal system governed by the rule of law.

"It is a manifestation of the impunity with which armed forces, including the police, are prone to act in utter disregard of the rule of law," a bench of Justices S Muralidhar and IS Mehta said.

Initially, the court had convicted 17 police personnel which was the highest number of police personnel to be convicted in a fake encounter case in India. But High Court freed ten and gave the punishment to the seven.

Ranbir Singh was a 22-year-old MBA graduate from Ghaziabad, who went to Dehradun on 3 July 2009 to take up a job. Where he caught with his friends at Mohini Road in Dehradun and allegedly trying to commit a crime by Uttarakhand Police.

According to Ranbir’s father Ravindra Singh his son had been shot 29 times by the police. Police later held a press conference where they claimed to have murdered a gangster who escaped into the forest after snatching the revolver of a policeman who stopped his bike at a checkpoint.