Police killed Dilip Roy after he allegedly opened fire near the Bihar border. The fourth fatal encounter since May has sharpened debate over policing and public safety.The death of Dilip Roy in Uttar Dinajpur district was the fourth reported fatal police encounter since the BJP came to power in May.
A man accused of raping and murdering a 12-year-old girl was killed in a police encounter in West Bengal on Monday, PTI reported. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari defended the police firing as an act of self-defence and said his government had given the force a free hand to deal with rapists.The death of Dilip Roy in Uttar Dinajpur district was the fourth reported fatal police encounter since the BJP came to power in May.
It triggered a political row, with the opposition Trinamool Congress questioning the government's law-and-order record and alleging that crimes against women and children continued despite the chief minister's tough stand.Police said Roy opened fire at a team that tracked him down near the West Bengal-Bihar border after a four-day search. The personnel retaliated and injured him.
He was taken to Raiganj Medical College and Hospital, where doctors declared him dead.A senior police officer told PTI that the team received a tip-off around 2 am and traced Roy to Parapukur in the Gouri gram panchayat area. A bullet allegedly fired by him hit the tyre of a police vehicle.
Roy, whose ancestral home was in Jharkhand, was reportedly trying to flee towards Bihar. The case sparked outrage after the naked and partially decomposed body of the 12-year-old girl was recovered from a forest near the Kulik river on November 6.
She had gone missing three days earlier after leaving home on a bicycle.Police alleged that Roy took the girl to the forest on the pretext of showing her the river, raped her and later killed her, an officer said. A police officer had initially told PTI that the girl was Roy's niece.
However, another senior official later clarified that they were neighbours and were not related. "The accused and the victim were neighbours. They were known to each other," the senior police officer said.Adhikari, who also holds the Home department portfolio, said the incident involved the police responding to an armed attack and was not an indiscriminate use of force.Speaking to reporters in Digha in Purba Medinipur district, the chief minister said police personnel were authorised to retaliate when attacked.
He said they did not need to wait for permission from senior officers in certain cases involving rape and murder, drug trafficking and infiltration from Bangladesh."Do the police shoot every accused? When someone attacks police, they retaliate in self-defence.
Is the police supposed to keep its gun in its pocket? Will the police throw rasgullas if they are fired upon by criminals?" Adhikari said."The government has given the police a free hand in certain cases.
They need not wait for permission from their superiors to act. There is absolutely zero tolerance towards rape and murder, drug trafficking and infiltration," he added.Union minister Sukanta Majumdar backed the chief minister, saying the government would not tolerate sexual offences and that criminals would be dealt with according to the law. "If a criminal shoots at the police, will the police throw laddoos at him?
They too will open fire," he said.The TMC said police action against accused people could not replace measures to ensure the safety of women and children. Party national general secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee questioned the BJP government's focus on encounters while alleging that sexual offences and violent crimes continued."Encounter after encounter, yet rapes continue unabated.
This is the grim reality of the BJP's much-advertised Jungle Raj model," Banerjee said in a post on X.He also referred to the alleged abduction and rape of an eight-year-old girl in Bhatar in Purba Bardhaman district on Monday. He cited reported figures of more than 2,500 rapes, over 600 murders and more than 34,000 grave offences in recent months.
The figures cited by the TMC leader could not be independently verified by PTI.Roy's mother refused to take his body home and said she did not wish to see his face. She described his death as a relief after years of alleged neglect and abuse. "What can I say?
Whatever has happened is good. The police have given him the punishment he deserved.
I feel a burden has been lifted off my chest," she told reporters at the hospital where his body had been taken.The BJP government has sought to present its approach as a break from the previous Left Front and TMC governments, which it has accused of allowing criminal networks to flourish under political patronage.The latest incident was the fourth reported fatal police firing since May. In July, Prabhas Mondal, who was accused of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl in Baruipur in South 24 Parganas, was killed after police alleged that he snatched a firearm from personnel during a reconstruction of the crime and opened fire.Two other accused were killed in separate incidents on October 27.
Prahlad Das, who was arrested after the body of a Class 11 student was recovered in Gaighata in North 24 Parganas, was allegedly shot while trying to escape during a reconstruction of the crime. On the same day, Samaul Haque, arrested in connection with the murder of a BJP worker in Samserganj in Murshidabad, was also killed in a police encounter.Roy's death has therefore intensified the political debate over policing in West Bengal, with the government defending the firing as self-defence and the opposition questioning whether such encounters can ensure the safety of women and children.- Ends