This report is part of our investigative series on police excesses. Read the previous installments here.

Zeeshan Haider’s phone rang at midnight at his home in Uttar Pradesh’s Deoband on September 5, 2021. The 50-year-old farmer told his wife he had to step out. The police had allegedly called him for an inquiry. Half an hour later, his phone was dead. By morning, so was he.

The official story ran like this: there had been a night operation in Thithki village forests, a confrontation with “cow smugglers”, a bullet to the thigh, and death from excessive bleeding. 

To his family, the police version didn’t add up. 

The two policemen who had first informed Zeeshan’s relatives about the police operation had allegedly said he was admitted to the Deoband government hospital with a bullet injury. But when relatives rushed to the hospital, hospital staff redirected them to Saharanpur district hospital, where they found him dead. Zeeshan had two licensed rifles but no criminal record. But on the day he died, he was booked in four FIRs along with five others, with charges such as murder, attempt to murder, rioting, and sections of the Arms Act.

Zeeshan’s wife Afroz placed her faith in the National Human Rights Commission, a statutory body empowered to probe human rights violations that is guided by the Supreme Court’s 2014 PUCL ruling, which mandates rigorous scrutiny in cases of police killings.

But instead of a thorough and time-bound probe, Afroz encountered a maze of procedural delays. The matter remained before the NHRC for nearly 14 months before it was dismissed with the panel accepting the police version. Though a court later termed the police version as “laughable”.

The case is not an outlier. 

An analysis of NHRC’s handling of encounter-related cases in Uttar Pradesh reveals a troubling pattern: the commission largely relies on the police version of events and magisterial enquiry reports prepared by executive magistrates, often without conducting independent investigations of its own. This, in a state infamously known for an “encounter raj”.

Between 2017 and 2024, the NHRC reviewed a total of at least 236 encounter-related matters, in two separate categories. 

At least 161 of these were reports about 157 police encounter killings in the state, according to data obtained through the Right to Information Act. These cases were mostly reported by the state police to the commission, as required under NHRC and Supreme Court guidelines. In none of these cases did the NHRC conclude that foul play was involved. Only 10 cases saw spot inquiries by NHRC’s investigation teams, and even in these, the commission found no fault in the police’s narrative. In at least 34 of these 161 cases, the NHRC refused to intervene saying that the Uttar Pradesh State Human Rights Commission had already taken cognisance. 

In its RTI response, the NHRC also provided a separate list of 75 complaints about 69 victims of “alleged fake encounters”. But even in these 75 cases, compensation has been recommended in only two, and action against police personnel in none. 

Asked about the basis on which it divides the two categories, a source in the commission told Newslaundry that the classification is merely for “internal” purposes. 

Newslaundry had earlier reported on how the NHRC over the years has increasingly disposed of complaints without proper inquiry, often forwarding them to “appropriate authorities” instead. This trend has paralleled a sharp rise in non-compliance with its recommendations – pendency jumped from 36 percent in 2010–11 to 74 percent in 2019–20, peaking at 90 percent in 2015–16. In 2017, the Supreme Court slammed the NHRC for mechanically closing encounter cases in Manipur, calling it a “toothless tiger”. Despite receiving nearly one lakh complaints annually, most are dismissed at the initial stage. 

This report has case studies that are selected illustrations from a larger dataset of NHRC encounter-related matters in Uttar Pradesh. They are not exhaustive but reflect recurring patterns and highlight systemic issues in how the commission has handled such cases. 

A story of two complaints

In UP, inquiries into alleged extrajudicial killings have often been marked by delays and an over-reliance on police accounts.

For example, the Zeeshan case, in which proceedings began in November 2021, when the NHRC issued its first notice. In January 2022, the Saharanpur SSP submitted a report listing multiple criminal cases against Zeeshan, with the commission directing further information from the DIG, Lucknow, and warning of coercive action under Section 13 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, if delayed. It wasn’t until April that reports finally arrived from both the DIG Saharanpur and the state police headquarters. The NHRC then sought a fresh report from the DGP of Uttar Pradesh and instructed that these documents be shared with Afroz for her comments. But by August 2022, no fresh report had come in and Afroz had not submitted any comments, prompting yet another reminder.

In November 2022, three separate reports were submitted, by the SSP Saharanpur, DIG UP, and DIG Saharanpur, but the commission once again noted the absence of any comments from Afroz – the family told Newslaundry she had never been contacted. Around this time, the NHRC also noted that proceedings were underway in another complaint filed by Afroz a month before the current complaint. It closed the current file, opting to pursue the earlier one. 

That case, too, followed a familiar pattern of inaction. The first hearing had taken place in November 2021, with no response from the police until July 2022. A final reminder in October led the NHRC to invoke section 13(a) of the Human Rights Act and summon the SSP to appear in person in December. A report eventually arrived on January 20, 2023, stating that four FIRs had been registered against Zeeshan, with chargesheets filed in two. 

Accepting this version wholesale, the NHRC closed the matter, around two months after it had closed the other complaint, stating that “appropriate action has been taken by the concerned police authority”. But according to Zeeshan’s family, the NHRC never contacted them during the entire process, shutting them out of a case ostensibly pursued on their behalf.

Just two days after the NHRC closed the case, the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court in Saharanpur, on January 22, 2023, ordered that 12 police personnel involved in Zeeshan’s death be booked. In a further blow to the police narrative, the same court in March 2025 rejected the closure report submitted by the police and directed a reinvestigation into the case. 

The court pointed out various anomalies in the police version. “It is quite astonishing that, despite being apprehended by the police, an illegal firearm allegedly remained in the possession of the accused for a long time, and that it was from this very weapon that a sudden firing occurred, resulting in injury. The claim that the co-accused were together while the police party was positioned in another direction, and that the accused ended up shooting each other with their own weapons, appears laughable and implausible,” the court observed.

The court also noted that all the FIRs against the accused were registered on the day of his death, which lends prima facie support to the petitioner’s argument that these FIRs were filed posthumously to justify the police’s actions by portraying the deceased – a person who had been issued firearm licenses by the District Magistrate and had no criminal record – as a criminal after his killing.

“They killed him and then declared him a criminal,” alleged Ishan Raza, Zeeshan’s relative.

Newslaundry reached out to the Saharanpur SSP who maintained information about the present status of the investigation can only be obtained from court. 

The crime branch in Saharanpur district is currently investigating the case against the policemen involved. 

But what about the 10 cases that saw spot inquiries by the NHRC between 2017 and 2024?

Glaring gaps

On December 30, 2017, 30-year-old Noor Mohammad told his wife Shahana that police had detained his sister and he needed to leave his home to go to a police station in Meerut, according to the family. He dropped his family at his in-laws’ house and rode his Karizma motorcycle into what would become his final journey.

The next morning, Shahana learned of his death in a police encounter. Noor, according to the police, was a history-sheeter and was among bike-borne miscreants who opened fire at the police.

It took one year before the case was closed by the NHRC terming it as a “genuine encounter”, based on a “careful examination of the magisterial enquiry report, postmortem report, FSL report, report of the spot enquiry conducted by the team of investigation division of this commission, and other material on record”.

However, a report by a human rights group in 2021 accused the NHRC of ignoring glaring gaps in the police version in Noor’s case, along with 16 other killings. 

The report – titled “Extinguishing Law and Life: Police Killings and Cover-Up in the State of Uttar Pradesh” – published by the Youth for Human Rights Documentation, also accused the NHRC of ignoring repeated appeals from complainants. 

The NHRC’s proceedings had ruled out the possibility of shots being fired from a close-range or in custody. This, despite noting that the postmortem report confirmed tattooing on wounds of the deceased, a clear sign of close-range shots, the human rights group’s report claimed. Additionally, in the case of Noor and six others, forensic records obtained through RTI by the group suggested that the fingerprints of the deceased were not found on the weapons recovered by the police from the scene of crime.

The report also claimed the magisterial probe had missed scientific evidence such as forensic or ballistic analysis. The magisterial probe did not even refer to the firearm log books, the forensic analysis of the guns or the ballistic reports, which are considered crucial in determining whether the bullets recovered from the bodies matched the weapons used by the police, the report claimed. 

The magisterial probe examined nine public servants, including six police officers and three doctors, but no public witnesses.

Mangla Verma, a human rights lawyer, told Newslaundry that the NHRC has itself been criticising the poor quality of the inquiries by executive magistrates since 1997 when it issued its first guidelines on encounters. “This issue has been there for a long time. But the PUCL judgement failed to give any clarity on this. This is why this confusion  continues till date.”

Human rights activists and lawyers alleged that non-participation of the victim’s family in the NHRC proceedings was often due to fear. Akram Akhtar Choudhury, a Delhi-based lawyer, claimed the NHRC’s process of visiting encounter spots and meeting family members involves the local administration and police. “For example, if they have to visit a family, they would first inform the local administration and police. This makes the situation vulnerable for the victim’s family who are already in fear.”

Akram claimed he also faced harassment for his work as a human rights defender. However, NHRC also did not do much on his complaint. “I filed a complaint to NHRC and it just directed the Circle Officer to inquire about it. Subsequently, one havildar asked me about what all happened. But nothing happened after that,” he alleged.

But what about the cases where the NHRC confirms an extrajudicial killing?

Conflict of interest?

In one case, even after the NHRC acknowledged the death was a fake encounter, it failed to hold the investigating officers accountable for serious procedural lapses. This involved the case of Sumit Gujjar.

On October 3, 2017, Gujjar was reportedly killed in a police encounter in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Over a 2.5-year-long investigation, NHRC proceedings revealed multiple inconsistencies in the police version – contradictory press notes, absence of call detail records, blackening on the wound suggesting close-range firing, and the lack of any independent witness. Despite terming it a “fake encounter,” the commission limited its response to recommending Rs 5 lakh in compensation to Gujjar’s family. No punitive action was advised against any police officer involved.

A similar pattern emerged in the case of Apple employee Vivek Tiwari who was killed in Lucknow on September 28, 2018. Tiwari was shot after he allegedly refused to stop his car when asked by the police to do so. The next day, two constables were arrested in a case of murder. A chargesheet was filed on December 19.

NHRC received a complaint on October 3, 2018. It first heard the matter on October 10, 2018, and next in April 2019. In its fourth hearing in July 2020, the NHRC recommended Rs 5 lakh in compensation. The case was closed in January after the police agreed to pay the compensation amount. The commission, at any stage, did not consider action against the policemen involved in the case.

“Awarding compensation means the NHRC acknowledges a human rights violation occurred. But the commission never recommends prosecution, even though it has the legal authority to do so,” said Verma, who has closely tracked Gujjar’s case.

She noted that although Gujjar’s case was later handed to the CBI, the agency filed a closure report stating no wrongdoing by police. “The NHRC simply recorded this as a fact in its final order, noted that compensation had been paid, and closed the case, without intervening,” she said. “Even in cases where FIRs are registered, they’re typically filed against those killed in the encounter or unknown persons, not the police personnel directly involved.”

She also highlighted routine violations of PUCL guidelines during evidence collection. “Instead of being handled by an independent agency, evidence was often gathered by officers from the same police station implicated in the encounter. In some cases, the matter was transferred to a different station only to create a façade of impartiality,” she said. 

This conflict of interest went unaddressed in 11 of the 17 encounter cases closed by the NHRC as mentioned in the Youth for Human Rights Documentation report in 2021.

The structural issue runs deeper: the NHRC’s own investigative division was headed by an officer from the Indian Police Service. Notably, the IPS officer who served as SSP of Meerut between July 2017 and April 2018 – when several controversial encounters took place, including the killing of Noor – was later appointed as SSP at the NHRC, and eventually promoted to DIG within the commission.

Newslaundry asked the NHRC and MHA about norms that ensure there is no conflict of interest in the panel’s investigations. This report will be updated if a response is received.

In oblivion land

An analysis of NHRC proceedings in 163 cases reveals a troubling pattern: the commission routinely overlooked key forensic red flags such as missing call detail records (CDRs) and the absence of gunshot residue (GSR) on victims’ hands – critical elements in assessing the authenticity of police encounters.

Take the case of Mohammad Tauqeer, killed in an alleged encounter in Uttar Pradesh’s Pratapgarh on June 6, 2019. According to NHRC records, Tauqeer was labelled a history-sheeter, and the police claimed they had launched an operation to arrest him after receiving a tip-off. During this operation, an encounter allegedly took place in which Tauqeer was shot dead. The post-mortem report noted that he died of “shock and haemorrhage from ante mortem firearm injuries,” with two entry and two exit wounds – one showing blackening around the wound, a sign of close-range firing.

“The police has justifiably exercised its right to self-defence in the instant case. Accordingly, closure of the case has been recommended,” it wrote in its final order dated May 26, 2021.

In another case from Saharanpur, a man named Adnan was similarly killed in a police encounter on September 16, 2019. The NHRC proceedings recorded that the police claimed Adnan and his associates were “firing indiscriminately” at officers, prompting them to retaliate. But the ballistic report stated: “No GSR was detected in the handwash swab of the deceased.” Despite this contradiction, the NHRC found no wrongdoing.

“GSR tests are crucial because the police routinely justify encounter killings by claiming they acted in self-defence,” said Verma, who is privy to details of both the cases. “If no GSR is found, it undermines the entire narrative. Yet NHRC consistently fails to interrogate these gaps.”

Failing human rights regime

The NHRC’s failures have not gone unnoticed internationally. The institution has been downgraded by the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions for failing to comply with the Paris Principles – the international standards for human rights institutions.

Last year, the GANHRI deferred its accreditation to the NHRC for the second time in decades, citing political interference in appointments, involvement of the police in probes into human rights violations, and poor cooperation with civil society. Newslaundry had earlier reported on India’s weakening human rights regime and its headless state human rights commissions.

“We are talking about an institution which has been downgraded now by its own global alliance of human rights institutions for not complying with the Paris principle. Which means it’s not independent, not diverse, not transparent and it's not effective,” said prominent human rights activist Henry Tiphagne.

The statistics are devastating, according to Henry. “The most recent figure on torture is that there are more than 20,000 cases registered with NHRC. Out of these, only 998 cases ended up with compensation. Out of 998, only 28 cases were recommended for disciplinary action. Unfortunately, we don’t need to talk about this institution unless the head of the institution shows he wants the institution  to be completely overhauled.”

In an RTI, Newslaundry separately asked the NHRC the number of police encounters cases it has received since 2019, how many investigations it conducted, how many ground reports carried out, the families met, and how many matters referred to the SHRC. In response, NHRC said there had been 114 encounter deaths with two cases having been transferred to SHRC during this period.

However, it refused to share details about investigations saying it is “not feasible” to provide details of each and every case and “compile such voluminous” information, which can “disproportionately” divert resources to the extent to “disrupt” the commission’s routine functioning. Though it maintained that the “details of each case may be seen/checked at hrcnet.nic.in, by entering case number”.

Newslaundry reached out to the NHRC, UP DGP and the MHA for comment and sent them a questionnaire. This report will be updated if a response is received.

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