Encountered on Saffron Agenda?

In the years following the 2002 communal riots, the Indian state of Gujarat was rocked by a series of 'encounters': extrajudicial killings conducted by the police staged as acts of self-defence against escaping detainees. Shubhradeep Chakravorty’s cogent, straight-talking Encountered on Saffron Agenda? unearths the truth behind four notorious encounters that took place in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, between 2002 and 2005.

The modus operandi in each incident is similar: Muslims with petty crime records are implicated in a cooked-up terrorist plot against Chief Minister Narendra Modi, taken to secluded locations, shot at point-blank range in the early hours of the day and finally reported as being killed in their attempts at armed evasion. Riddled with falsities and contradictions, the official account of the events hardly holds water, yet, it is received with much fanfare by the public and party-affiliated media.

Leaning on newspaper articles, legal documents and interviews with lawyers, activists, jurists and relatives of the deceased, Chakravorty’s film persuasively debunks the official narrative of the encounters. With a lucid line of argument, it exposes these killings as a ploy to strengthen Modi’s position in the factional wars within his party and his public image as a stern crusader against terrorism. Encountered on Saffron Agenda? presents a sobering corrective to police malpractice that continues to enjoy popular support.

 

– Srikanth Srinivasan