Umesh Pal murder case: UP judicial panel finds three police encounters 'real'

Lucknow, Aug 1 (PTI) A judicial inquiry commission, set up to ascertain the legitimacy of three police encounters in Uttar Pradesh in which suspects of the sensational Umesh Pal murder case were killed, has found the shootouts as "real" and done in "self defence".

Among the suspects killed in one of these three encounters was Asad Ahmed, son of slain gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed.

The judicial inquiry commission's report was tabled in the UP Assembly on Thursday.

Umesh Pal, the prime witness in the 2005 BSP MLA Raju Pal murder case, was shot dead at his residence in Prayagraj in February 2023.

Raju Pal was murdered months after winning the Allahabad (West) assembly seat in his electoral debut by defeating former MP Atiq Ahmed's younger brother Khalid Azim. Atiq Ahmed and his brother and ex-MLA Ashraf were prime accused in the Raju Pal murder case.

Governor Anandi Ben Patel had ordered the formation of a two-member judicial inquiry commission in April to find out reality of the police encounters.

Of the three encounters, the first shootout took place on February 27, 2023 in Dhumanganj area of Prayagraj in which Arbaaz died, the second on March 6, 2023 in Kaundhiara area of Prayagraj in which Vijay Kumar Chaudhary alias Usman was killed, and the third encounter occurred in Jhansi in which Asad Ahmed and Mohammad Ghulam died.

Justice Rajiv Lochan Mehrotra (retired) of Allahabad High Court was chairman of the panel and Vijay Kumar Gupta, retired DG of UP Police, its member.

"The veracity of the above three incidents is proved by the medical examination and postmortem reports of the deceased available on file and the evidence of the examined scientists of the Forensic Science Laboratory, who have clearly stated in their evidence that the injuries suffered by the deceased were from bullets fired from distance and the weapons recovered from deceased accused and possessed by the police party in the incident were actually used for firing," the report stated.

"All the doctors have also confirmed through their evidence that the injuries sustained by all the deceased were from the front and the injuries sustained by the policemen in these incidents were also caused by firearms.

"In their reports and evidence, the doctors did not find the injuries suffered by the policemen to be self-inflicted," it stated.

The report also noted that it was clear that the weapons recovered from accused Arbaaz and Vijay Kumar Choudhary at the time of the encounters were also used in the murder case of Umesh Pal.

"Undisputedly, the above three encounters are between the police and the accused related to the Umesh Pal murder case. Umesh Pal was an advocate by profession and he had courageously testified in his kidnapping case against persons who had a long criminal history in the city. It was because of this courage of Umesh Pal that he was murdered," the judicial panel noted.

All the oral and documentary evidence compiled on the file and after inspection of the scene of occurrence of the three incidents, the commission is satisfied that in the above three cases, police had an encounter with the accused in which the firing was initiated by the accused, the report said.

The judicial commission also found that the police had given the accused sufficient opportunity to surrender themselves and the police opened fire at the accused "only in self-defence" which resulted in the death of the accused, according to the report.

"This act of the police parties comes under the right of self-defence given to them by law. Therefore, Commission is of the view that the incidents of the above three encounters are real and beyond doubt. It is also clear that none of the police parties involved in the encounters encroached on the right of self-defence," the inquiry panel said.

"During the inquiry, no malice, personal interest, conspiracy or fault of the policemen was found," the panel concluded. PTI KIS KVK KVK