characterised them as “not only important and relevant, but lying at the heart of the doctrine that welfare of an individual must yield to that of the community.” In some of the cases of fake encounters however, there was not much on record, even to establish the criminal past of those killed.13 The negative impact of such cases is the impression it creates that all encounters in which police and security forces are involved, are fake. Society needs to be reassured that the majority of encounters are genuine and mostly in response to murderous attacks on security personnel. The fact that, on average, over 1,200 policemen get killed every year grappling with terrorists, insurgents, underworld mafia and other anti-social elements, bears ample testimony to this fact. The other downside of such incidents is that it erodes the people’s trust in governance. Administrations begin to be seen as instruments of repression and self-aggrandisement and politicians as perceived as manipulating their power for political and personal gains. This erosion can lead to a dangerous de legitimisation of the polity. The need to work only within the parameters set by Rule of law while dealing with encounters has therefore, to be strongly reflected in the police actions. The National Human Rights Commission has considered the issue and in order to verify whether the law has been upheld, it recommended a procedure to be followed in the cases of encounter deaths by all the States/ UTs in the country. The Guidelines were conveyed to all the States/UTs in 1997, those were further revised in 2003. After a careful consideration of the whole matter, the Commission had recently revised the procedure, in May 2010 to be followed by the States/UTs, in case of deaths during the course of police action. The revised guidelines of NHRC are contained in Chapter Three of the Manual. IV. Handcuffing Handcuffs are used frequently during transportation of prisoners from the jail to court, of accused from the site of the alleged crime to the police station or to court, and from the jail/police station to the hospital. During these movements, the use of handcuffs is supposed to be the exception, not the rule. 13 Complicated encounters–Doval, Ajit Kumar - The Indian Express, Aug 04 2010 Manual on Human Rights for Police Officers 29