It is now an accepted fact that encounter specialists get to know the movements of underworld operatives from rival gangs, who make use of the specialists to eliminate competition. It is also suspected that complaints of extortion increase when specialists head special units meant for curbing this specific crime!

While discussing corruption with this writer some time in 1988, the commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, Sir Peter Imbert (later Lord Imbert), confided that Scotland Yard too had a problem, mainly with the special squads. This can be understood when one considers that these men, who are specially chosen for their daring and extraordinary initiative, enjoy a measure of freedom that is denied to their colleagues. Their unconventional hours of work and the risks they take give them some form of licence, which is most often misused.

An ‘encounter’ would normally connote an unexpected meeting of two people or groups of people, usually adversaries. Can there be specialists who specialise in unexpected confrontations? Hardly likely. The term ‘encounter specialists’, therefore, is a misnomer that doesn’t sound right but assuages the fears of the urban middle class.

Encounter specialists came to prominence in the big metropolitan cities of Mumbai and Delhi in the last decade or two. The principal reason for their rise was the increasing inability of the judicial system to punish and put away desperate criminals owing allegiance to the underworld. The length of time taken for cases to come up for hearing in the court, together with the increasing corruption in the investigation, prosecution and trial machinery, as well as in the prison administration, had taken its inevitable toll.

... contd.