First, they were made to lie flat on the ground. Then their legs were wrapped in cloth. And finally, shots were fired, from barely 8 inches away.

This is the shocking tale of the growing culture of “half encounters” in Uttar Pradesh. In February, inside Deoband Jail, young men stood in a line before a visiting magistrate, lifting their trousers one by one to reveal bullet wounds just below the knee. Some leaned on each other for balance. Others spoke in low voices, haltingly recounting how they were picked up by the police, subjected to electric shocks, forced to confess, and eventually driven to secluded locations before being shot and presented as criminals injured in an “encounter”.

The visit itself was unprecedented. Magistrates usually do not enter prisons to personally examine inmates’ injuries. Yet, soon after the Allahabad High Court’s sharp observations on January 30 on half encounters in the State, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Parvinder Singh took the unusual step of visiting Deoband Jail and directly examining inmates who had sustained gunshot injuries during police actions. The exercise, captured on video, showed the magistrate interacting individually with prisoners, asking them how they were shot, where the bullets struck, and under what circumstances.

Judicial intervention

Behind this extraordinary judicial intervention lay an equally extraordinary court order. In a detailed ruling delivered on what was formally a bail application, Justice Arun Kumar Singh Deshwal issued one of the strongest judicial indictments yet of Uttar Pradesh’s encounter culture. The judge warned that firing at suspects, even on non-vital parts of the body, was unlawful, that punishment lay exclusively with courts, and that district police chiefs could face contempt proceedings if Supreme Court–mandated procedures continued to be ignored.

The order exposed systemic violations and questioned the motivations behind police firing, even indicating that officers were acting in pursuit of promotions, praise from superior officers, and social media fame.

A prisoner told the visiting magistrate that he had been picked up while on his way to Saharanpur for a scheduled hearing in a pending case. According to his account, the police detained him near Shamli Park, took him to a police post, administered electric shocks to extract a confession, and later transported him to a forested area. “There they brought a motorbike from the police station,” he said. “First, they made me lie down. Then shots were fired from about 8 inches above. After that, they fired again, using a countrymade pistol.”

The police identified the injured man as Shehzad and claimed that he was wanted in cow slaughter cases and that a countrymade pistol and motorcycle were recovered from him. According to Circle Officer Abhitesh Singh, officers on patrol near the Khudabakshpur canal came under fire from motorcycle-borne men and shot back, injuring Shehzad in the leg, while another suspect fled.

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Shehzad’s lawyer, Mohammad Arif, disputed the police version. He said that Shehzad was on the way to court on November 19 when his phone became unreachable near Nanauta around 12:15 pm. “The next morning, we learnt that the police had shown him as injured in an encounter and sent him to jail.”

A second inmate, when questioned, simply lifted his trousers to display similar wounds. He too said that he was picked up, questioned later, and shot after detention.

‘Operation Langda’

Taken together, the testimonies point to a disturbing pattern: arrest first, followed by coercion, and finally a bullet to the leg. The practice is colloquially known in Uttar Pradesh as “Operation Langda”, where accused people are incapacitated rather than killed.

For years, opposition parties and civil liberties groups have alleged that police encounters are frequently staged, serving less as acts of self-defence and more as extrajudicial punishment dressed up as law enforcement. Now, with judicial scrutiny intensifying, this culture of impunity appears to be facing its strongest challenge yet.

Under the Yogi Adityanath government, what began as sporadic police firing incidents evolved into what officers privately described as an undeclared “Operation Langda”. Over time, the practice has expanded into a Statewide “shoot-to-disable” strategy.

Such cases have surfaced across several districts, such as Lucknow, Bahraich, Shamli, Ballia, Unnao, Agra, Amroha, Ghaziabad, Kushinagar, Jhansi, Bulandshahr, and Firozabad, suggesting that the pattern was not localised but systemic. Images and videos of suspects with bullet wounds, propped up on hospital beds or on the roadside with heavily bandaged legs, circulated widely on social media. In several cases, the injuries have resulted in permanent disability, altering lives long before any trial could begin.

State defence of policy

The State government has defended the policy as part of its “zero tolerance” approach to crime. Police officials insist that their rules of engagement are straightforward: if an accused attempts to flee arrest or opens fire, officers are authorised to shoot below the waist to neutralise the threat.

But constitutional law does not recognise the practice of disabling as a category of punishment. Also, critics said that the locational consistency of injuries, which are invariably just below the knee, suggests something other than spontaneous self-defence.

The encounter policy has unfolded alongside other hard-line enforcement measures, including demolitions of property of accused people, a practice that critics have labelled “bulldozer raj”. Both strategies have increasingly drawn judicial scrutiny for bypassing procedural safeguards and blurring the distinction between investigation and punishment.

Critics said that in Uttar Pradesh, half encounters have become an open secret. The logic behind these actions is brutally simple: incapacitate the suspect, demonstrate toughness, and close cases quickly. Police officers, however, rarely sustain injuries.

Court warning

The judiciary has increasingly questioned both the necessity and proportionality of such force. In his order, Justice Deshwal warned that such conduct was unlawful and incompatible with constitutional governance. “The power of punishment lies with the judiciary, not the police,” the court remarked, adding that India, as a democratic country, must function according to the separation of powers laid out in the Constitution. The court also observed that in many such cases, no police officer had suffered any injury, which raises serious questions about the need or justification for the use of firearms.

The January order effectively tightened procedural safeguards around police encounters involving grievous injury. Reiterating the Supreme Court’s directives in People’s Union for Civil Liberties v. State of Maharashtra, the High Court laid down six mandatory steps that must be followed whenever any person is seriously injured during an encounter.

One of them is that an FIR must be registered regarding the encounter, though it need not initially name individual officers but only the team involved. Crucially, the investigation must be conducted by an independent agency such as the Crime Branch, Crime Investigation Department (CB-CID) or a police unit from another station, under the supervision of a senior officer.

The injured person must be provided with immediate medical aid and their statement must be recorded either by a magistrate or a medical officer, who must certify them as fit. No out-of-turn promotions or gallantry awards may be granted soon after an encounter. Any such recognition must come only after scrutiny by a committee and confirmation that genuine gallantry was involved.

If families believe that procedures have been violated or investigations compromised, they may approach the Sessions Judge, who is empowered to examine complaints and, in appropriate cases, refer matters to the High Court.

Holding police accountable

Perhaps most significantly, the court warned that district police chiefs, including Superintendents of Police, Senior Superintendents of Police, and Police Commissioners, could face contempt proceedings if these guidelines are flouted within their jurisdictions. It was against this backdrop that the Deoband Jail visit took place.

In several recent cases examined by the High Court, FIRs appeared to follow near-identical scripts, complete with cinematic dialogue and improbable timelines. The court remarked that such FIRs seemed “heavily borrowed from movie scripts” and called them fanciful, exaggerated, and disconnected from ground realities.

In one instance, the court pointed out the absurdity of police claiming that “dawn was about to break” during an alleged incident said to have occurred at 10:45 am. In another, it questioned dramatic exchanges attributed to accused people at the moment of confrontation. “These inconsistencies reflect patent abuse of law,” it said. Such judicial remarks underline a broader concern: that paperwork is being manufactured to legitimise violence after the incident.

The advocate Kusum Mishra, who appeared for one of the accused who sustained grievous injuries, emphasised that the law does not deny police the right to protect themselves but it does impose strict obligations. She said: “The police should fulfil their duties and follow the guidelines of the Supreme Court. If criminals are hit by a bullet, guidelines have to be followed. Videography must be made. Statements must be given before a magistrate. Statements should also be given before the medical officer.”

Need for transparency

Her point reflects the heart of the judiciary’s concern: police action must be transparent, independently investigated, and subject to judicial oversight. Yet, in practice, these safeguards have often remained only on paper. Human rights lawyers said that injured accused people frequently spend months in custody before securing bail, while the officers involved continue in service. Independent investigations are rare; accountability rarer still.

Seema Azad, human rights activist and president of the Uttar Pradesh chapter of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), said that the pattern reflects deliberate subversion of judicial safeguards.

She said: “The Uttar Pradesh government is at the forefront of defying Supreme Court guidelines. The Chief Minister himself publicly urges police to ‘thok do’ [finish them]. Alongside this, the State has devised the idea of a half encounter to bypass Supreme Court guidelines altogether.”

She added that while the High Court’s latest order was welcome, real deterrence would require prosecuting officers for attempt to murder. The PUCL has long argued that extrajudicial violence thrives in environments where institutional incentives reward “results” over due process.

No reward for encounters

One of the High Court’s sharpest interventions concerns the practice of rewarding officers soon after encounters through promotions, commendations, or public praise. Such incentives distort policing priorities and encourage excessive force, according to the court.

Equally significant is the court’s insistence on personal accountability of district police chiefs. By holding top police officers liable for contempt, the judiciary is attempting to push responsibility upward, challenging the culture of plausible deniability that often shields senior officers.

Whether this translates into real change remains to be seen. Past experience suggests that compliance with judicial guidelines is uneven at best. Even after the Supreme Court laid down comprehensive procedures over a decade ago, encounter-related abuses have continued to occur across several States, most strikingly in Uttar Pradesh.

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In allowing bail to an accused who had sustained grievous injuries, the Allahabad High Court went beyond procedural directions to articulate a deeper constitutional principle. It observed: “The protection of human life and dignity is not only the object of the Constitution of India but also a universal principle accepted by the international community.”

Saving democracy

The remark cuts to the core of the issue. At stake is not merely the legality of police firing but the idea of India as a constitutional democracy, one in which guilt is determined by courts, not bullets; where punishment follows trial, not arrest; and where state power is constrained by law. Sadly for the men inside Deoband Jail, these principles arrived late. Their bullet wounds testify to a system that often acts first and explains later.

Whether the magistrate’s visit marks a turning point will depend on whether it is followed up by independent investigations, departmental action, and sustained judicial monitoring. For now, the message from the courts is unmistakable. Encounters cannot substitute due process. Promotions cannot replace proof. And the police, however powerful, cannot be allowed to usurp the role of the judiciary.

As Uttar Pradesh grapples with this reckoning, the question remains: will these directives finally demolish the armour of impunity or will the injured continue to limp through a justice system that swings into action only after the police gunfire has stopped?

Advocate Kusum Mishra, who appeared for one of the accused who sustained grievous injuries, emphasised that the law does not deny police the right to protect themselves — but it does impose strict obligations.