Ninety per cent encounters in State are fake, alleges Azmi

Mumbai, June 17 (UNI) Samajwadi Party Mumbai unit president and Rajya Sabha member Abu Asim Azmi today alleged that the police were targeting the minority community members by branding them as terrorists and killing them in fake encounters.

Mr Azmi, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of his party's 'Jan Hit Morcha', allegedly claimed that 90 per cent of police encounters taking place in Maharashtra were ''fake''.

Mr Azmi was answering a query which was brought up by one of the speakers at the rally, who claimed that the people who were killed in the encounter relating to the attack on the RSS headquarters at Nagpur early this month was done in a fake encounter. Police pick-up some people detain them for three-four days and thereafter they are killed in the guise of an encounter, he added.

Mr Azmi also said some anti-social elements were out to malign the image of minority community by linking them to terrorist groups.

Earlier, a party worker from Nagpur in his speech said the RSS headquarters encounter in which three people were killed on June two this month were said to be Pakistani nationals and the police claimed to have recovered some incriminating documents including dairies from their possession.

He, however alleged the police later sent the photographs of the deceased to the Jammu and Kashmir police for verification of their identity.

UNI ST-GS PM AK RN1942