Plumbing the depths

Perhaps Mumbai's darkest, but most open, secret is that of so-called "encounter killings" - a euphemism for extra-judicial assassinations of criminals by officers of the Mumbai Police.

These have been going on since at least the 1980s, when the tactic was adopted to deal with Mumbai gangsters who were impervious to the corrupt criminal justice system. What good is a criminal prosecution when powerful, well-connected crooks can just buy their way out of trouble?

J Dey, who was a senior crime reporter with the Indian Express when I was working there (he's now moved on to the Hindustan Times), explained to me how it works. There's a list of targets, usually but not always violent criminals. In the past, a single extortion call has been enough to get you on the Mumbai cops' encounter wishlist.

When police get intelligence that a wanted man is at a particular location, they send a team to take him out. The execution is usually point-blank, performed by an "encounter specialist" like former plumber Daya Nayak (pictured above).

Then they plant a gun, fire a round into a wall to make it seem like the dead man shot first, and simply doctor the forensic reports to tie up with their account of the shooting. It's a nasty business. But, Dey argued, to clean up dirt you have to get dirty.

"It's difficult for these men, you don't know how difficult," Dey told me. "It takes a lot to kill people like this. A lot of them can't sleep afterwards."

No one knows how many executions have taken place over the years, but it is probably several thousand. Attempts to stop the practice have all been hamstrung by official denials and lack of evidence.

What helped was the Mumbai media, who rarely passed up a chance to celebrate the latest notches on the gunbelts of key encounter specialists. Cops like Sub Inspector Daya Nayak were feted as heroes and their running totals - Nayak killed 83 - were compared like cricketing scores. Nayak became the hero of several movies.

It was all just entertainment to an apathetic public who were glad the bad guys were getting their just desserts. "Due process" was another luxury that Mumbai simply could not afford.

But, for now at least, the encounter killing seems to have come to an end. The Crime Branch of the Mumbai Police which ran the encounter teams has been revealed to be riddled with corruption and gutted. The mafia is in disarray, and so the encounter specialists are no longer needed anyway.

Now, even the mighty Daya Nayak has been brought low. He's currently looking at a criminal prosecution after an investigation revealed that his assets vastly outweigh his income. It's alleged that he had collaborated with the underworld and - shock! - performed fake encounters.

Maybe he can go back to plumbing?