The throwing of sulphuric acid on two girls in Warangal district on December 10 caused uproar across Andhra Pradesh, and put pressure on the state government to act. The police responded swiftly, arresting three persons and parading them before the media. What follows is murky: the police claim to have been forced to kill these three in self-defence when they were attacked in custody. The families of those killed allege murder in cold blood. It’s still unclear what happened, and the state director general of police has ordered an inquiry. But the people, it seems, have made up their minds.

The police officers involved in the encounter have been treated as vigilante heroes, and mobbed by autograph seekers. Firecrackers were burst in celebration, sweets distributed, and a victory procession converged at the house of the police superintendent. This adulation is not unprecedented: across India, there is tacit public and political approval for encounter killings. The cult of the “encounter cop” owes its origin to the perceived need for the police to show “results”, and to a public weary of hardened criminals jumping bail. Both cops and laypersons share an impatience with the criminal justice system that they feel is simply not working: it takes too long to punish the guilty, and the accused often escape through a sieve of loopholes.

But to solve an error with another is merely to compound it. Our judicial system, however creaky, needs wide-ranging and long-term reform. Encounters, far from solving anything, create their own problems. Freed from any safeguards, some cops become laws unto themselves, as the arrest of some “encounter specialists” in Mumbai has shown. Encounters also wreak long-term damage by diminishing public confidence in our criminal justice system. If vigilante justice by the police is acceptable, what’s to stop ordinary citizens from taking the law into their own hands? The Warangal encounter leaves many questions unanswered. Were the accused guilty? Were they killed in cold-blood? But one lesson it does provide: this is no way to deliver justice.