How I battled Mumbai’s ‘encounter specialists’ who murdered my brother

* In 2006, Ramnarayan Gupta alias Lakhan Bhaiya, a small-time criminal, was killed by a team led by one of Mumbai’s most ‘famous’ encounter specialists Pradeep Sharma.* Seventeen years later, the Bombay high court this month sentenced Sharma and his team to life imprisonment for killing Lakhan Bhaiya in a ‘staged encounter’.* This is the story of Lakhan Bhaiya’s brother, Ramprasad Gupta, a lawyer, who set aside 17 years of his life to fight a legal battle to secure justice for his widowed sister-in-law and her children.On November 11, 2006, as soon as he learnt of his brother Ramnarayan Gupta alias Lakhan Bhaiya being picked up by plain-clothed policemen from Vashi, Navi Mumbai, Ramprasad Gupta, a lawyer, knew his brother’s life was in danger.He knew that the Mumbai cops — by then infamous for bumping off gangsters and then spinning a tired tale of “the criminal tried to evade arrest, fired at the policemen, and was killed in retaliatory fire” — would make it look like an ‘encounter’.As his mind raced thinking of ways to save Lakhan Bhaiya, a friend advised that he shoot off telegrams and faxes to top police officers — both in Navi Mumbai and Mumbai — informing them about his brother being picked up. He did.The faxes and telegrams carried an identical message — “Ramnarayan Vishwanath Gupta and Anil Bheda [one of Lakhan Bhaiya’s associates] picked up by plain-clothes policemen from Sector 9, Vashi, and their lives are in danger. Please help and save their lives.” medium108850487The idea was that if the higher-ups in the police force knew that the information about their men picking up Lakhan Bhaiya was out, they would discourage the team that had detained him from going ahead with the planned ‘encounter’.The idea didn’t work.Either the message was not passed on to the 14-member team of Mumbai police that had Lakhan Bhaiya in its custody, or the team led by ‘encounter specialist’ Pradeep Sharma was too drunk on its own sense of power and impunity to think the faxes and telegrams would matter.They went ahead and killed Lakhan Bhaiya the same day. This is what they said happened — they had a tip-off that Lakhan Bhaiya would visit a garden in Andheri (West). They tried to arrest him. He resisted. He opened fire. He was killed in retaliatory firing.The news of the encounter was flashed by television channels around 8.30pm that day.At that point, it had seemed to Gupta that all the faxes and telegrams and all the running around to save his brother’s life had been a waste. medium108851493However, 17 years later, the same messages have proven to be instrumental in sending all the police officers involved in the killing, including Sharma, the most powerful of them all, to life imprisonment.A division bench of the Bombay high court not only upheld the convictions of all the policemen held guilty by the sessions court, it also reversed Sharma’s acquittal. The high court pronounced all of them, including Sharma, guilty of all the charges including murder, conspiracy, abduction and destruction of evidence.“Keeping in mind, from the evidence that has come on record, we find that the prosecution has proved beyond reasonable doubt that Ramnarayan was killed brutally in cold blood by the accused, when he was in their custody and that to cover up the same, given it a colour of a genuine encounter,” the bench observed, calling them “trigger-happy cops”.In these 17 years, Gupta fought four court cases:* He filed a petition at the Bombay high court leading to an FIR being filed in the encounter case and a special investigation team (SIT) being set up to probe it.* The sessions court trial that led to the conviction and life imprisonment of 13 of the 14 policemen involved in the encounter. The court, however, acquitted Sharma.* Gupta then approached the high court again challenging Sharma’s acquittal. medium108850262* Even as his plea challenging Sharma’s acquittal was pending before the high court, the government allowed premature release of the 13 policemen convicted by the lower court.* Gupta then filed a petition in the high court challenging their release, resulting in them being sent back to prison.The court cases were only a part of his 17-year struggle. There were threats issued to his life. These were, mind you, not empty threats. Bheda, who was picked up with Lakhan Bhaiya on November 11, 2006, was found murdered in March 2011. He was the sole eyewitness to Lakhan Bhaiya’s detention and, possibly, his killing.Multiple offers were made to Gupta to ‘settle’ for cash. The offers ranged from ₹40 lakh to ₹25 crore. There was also a honey trap, which Gupta managed to evade with a little ‘help’ from his wife.This is the story of Gupta’s 17-year struggle to secure justice for his brother’s family and expose a band of corrupt cops. This is also the story of a period in Mumbai police’s history when the force, otherwise held in high regard around the country, had lost its way.A band of trigger-happy copsThe 1980s and the ’90s were, perhaps, one of Mumbai police’s darkest periods. It was during this period that the whole idea of policing was subverted to allow a clutch of low-level officers to become a law unto themselves.These officers, supported by their seniors, who probably did not have the stomach to deal with the underworld within the ambit of the powers the uniform granted them, began killing gangsters in detention instead of bringing them to justice.While these mostly young police inspectors were celebrated by the press and Bollywood as ‘encounter specialists’, few saw that they had now become a part of the problem — specialists in breaking the law they were meant to protect.Pradeep Sharma was one of the most feared officers among the ‘encounter specialists’. medium108850464According to some estimates, encounter specialists killed more than 500 gangsters during this period. Many of them would speak of the ‘number of hits’ they had racked up with unconcealed pride.Nana Patekar-starrer superhit Ab Tak Chhappan was based on the lives of these encounter specialists. It glorified their lack of faith in law, policing and courts.But what Ab Tak Chhappan and other such movies did not talk about was the sudden wealth these ‘encounter specialists’ had come to acquire.There were reports of them moving around in imported cars and owning benami properties. The suspicion was that these ‘encounter specialists’ were nothing but ‘guns for hire’ paid off by gangs to get their rivals killed.Watch: The encounter specialists of Mumbai police medium nocaption81655678Lakhan Bhaiya’s encounter, however, even by this ‘Wild West’ notoriety that the Mumbai police had gained, was odd.For one, it took place in 2006, a good five-six years after the ‘encounter specialists’ network was dismantled by some upright police commissioners who found the lawlessness appalling.Two, Lakhan Bhaiya was shot in the head. A rookie mistake to commit if you want to make a custody killing look like an exchange of fire.Three, it was never an encounter specialist’s style to leave an eyewitness on the gangster’s side. In nearly all encounter cases, the sole eyewitness would either be a cop, or some ‘bystander’ planted by the police.So, it was odd for them to pick up Lakhan Bhaiya along with Bheda. Was Bheda’s murder five years later an attempt to correct this mistake? Nobody ever really will know. medium108850834‘I lost everything in 17 years’“My eyes welled up as soon as the division bench finished pronouncing the judgment,” says Gupta about the high court judgment pronounced around 2.30pm on March 19.The court not only confirmed life imprisonment for all 12 policemen (one cop died during the high court appeal) by a trial court in July 2013, it also sentenced Sharma, who was, shockingly, acquitted by the lower court, to the same duration in jail.While the trial court judgment was a victory for Gupta and Lakhan Bhaiya’s family, the high court sentencing Sharma to life imprisonment, he says, brought closure.“The lower court letting Sharma walk free while convicting his entire team was a mockery of justice. Sharma was heading the team that killed my brother and one of the bullet injuries found on his body was fired from Sharma’s service revolver,” says Gupta. medium108850570The high court nearly echoed Gupta’s sentiments. “We find the finding of the learned judge [of the trial court] to be perverse, in as much as it is against the weight of evidence. We, in the facts, find that it is not possible to take any other view than the view taken by us, having regard to the overwhelming evidence adduced by the prosecution,” the bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Gauri Godse said.The court also referred to Lakhan Bhaiya’s criminal antecedents and made it clear that it did not necessarily give any authority to the accused persons to cause his death.“No doubt, Ramnarayan had several cases i.e. around 10 cases registered against him, however, that by itself, would not give the appellants/accused i.e. the police and the other persons, licence to kill. Instead of upholding the rule of law, the police have misused their positions and uniform, and have killed Ramnarayan in cold blood. It is pertinent to note that the last case registered against Ramnarayan was in the year 1998 and that not a single case was registered against Ramnarayan either with DN Nagar Police Station, Versova Police Station or Oshiwara Police Station,” the bench said.Apart from convicting Sharma, the bench upheld convictions and life sentence for Pradeep Suryawanshi, Dilip Palande, Tanaji Desai, Ratnakar Kamble, Vinayak Shinde, Nitin Sartape, Devidas Sakpal, Prakash Kadam, Ganesh Harpude, Anand Patade, Pandurang Kokam and Sandeep Sardar — all of them serving policemen at the time of the incident. medium108850607While Gupta can now, finally, claim victory, he is aware that he will have to start rebuilding his life now.“I lost nearly everything that I had built as I focused on this legal battle. In 2006, when my brother was killed, I had six juniors and had cases across different courts in the city. Now I have only two juniors and will have to start rebuilding my practice,” he says.He credits an excellent investigation carried out by the SIT formed under the high court’s directions and led by then deputy commissioner of police KMM Prasanna for the convictions.He said the SIT, right from the beginning, had looked like it meant business. The first person to be arrested by the SIT was Sharma, the most powerful of all the accused.The SIT could have easily botched up the case as it was, after all, investigating fellow officers.Prasanna’s excellent work, says Gupta, was complemented by the special public prosecutors — late RN Mishra followed by Vidya Kasle. medium108850647Gupta also thanked his lawyers — senior advocate late Vijay Pradhan, who appeared for him during the initial years, and Yug Chauhdry, who appeared at the appeal stage.The power that the accused wielded had become apparent when one of the metropolitan magistrates, who was directed to conduct an inquiry into the ‘encounter’ initially, was threatened by Suryawanshi, one of the cops.The magistrate apprised the high court administration of the threats, and a case for contempt of court was instituted against Suryawanshi.Before that, the first metropolitan magistrate involved in the inquiry, says Gupta, in fact, had suggested that he “settle” the case with the accused.About the honey trap, he said two rather attractive young women approached him saying they had been cheated of ₹4 lakh each. “I referred them to a police officer I knew. A few days later, they came back and thanked me profusely and said the issue had been resolved,” Gupta recalls.One evening, when Gupta was wrapping up work in his office, the women returned and asked him to accompany them on a night out. Gupta smelt mischief and told them that his wife would also join them.“I think they were taken aback when I mentioned my wife. They soon left, making some lame excuses, and never returned. In retrospect, I’m glad I reacted the way I did. Otherwise, I don’t know what scandal would have been created to distract me from the case,” he says. medium108850690There were people who tried to help too. People, who were hurt by ‘encounter specialists’ drunk on their clout, offered financial help. Gupta didn’t accept the help because he did not want anyone to control his actions.“While lighting my brother’s pyre, I had vowed to bring to justice the people responsible for his death. I didn’t want anyone to derail my life’s mission,” he says.Now that justice has been done, Gupta must start putting his life back together. Given the precarious state of his family’s finances, moving the high court to seek compensation is an option he is considering. “I should be compensated for the 17 years I lost to this case,” he says. “My brother’s and Anil Bheda’s widows and their children should be compensated too.”He says if he had sought compensation earlier, people would have said he was in it only for money. “But I was never chasing money. If it were for money, I would have accepted ₹25 crore that was offered to me to settle the case.”Lead image: Sajeev Kumarapuram