CHENNAI, India — India's democracy is being increasingly tarnished by its police force, which uses brutally illegal methods to deal with crime. Some officers are staging incidents to murder people who have been arrested on suspicion of committing particularly heinous offenses.
A suspect might be taken to a lonely spot by the police and shot dead. Sometimes, one of the accompanying cops is shot in the arm or leg to make the whole sordid episode appear as as if the suspect tried to escape.
Recently one such killing, which in India is termed "encounter death," happened in the southern city of Coimbatore, close to Chennai. Cabdriver Mohana Krishnan was killed by police as he was reportedly trying to flee from a van that was taking him to the scene of the crime.