Civil rights groups have criticised the government’s double standards saying that it first kills minorities citing a war against terrorism but during elections it comes out with many plans for them.

Rights group Awami Bharat called a press conference on Saturday to expose the nexus between the police and politicians in encounter killings.

“Earlier, encounters used to take place in Maharashtra. Now the government has started exporting people from Maharashtra to Gujarat to kill them,” activist-lawyer Mukul Sinha said at the conference.

Sinha also represents the family of Thane girl Ishrat Jahan who was killed in an encounter by the Gujarat police in June 2004. According to the Gujarat police, the teenager was on a mission to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Ahmedabad metropolitan magistrate SP Tamang, in September, concluded that the encounter was fake.

Sinha said the line between genuine and fake encounters has faded and the encounter killing of Ishrat had exposed the Gujarat government.

“Encounters and riots are all state sponsored,” Sinha said.

On the Ishrat case, Sinha said until the date of the final argument he did not know that that there was an affidavit filed by the central government saying that Ishrat was linked to the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba.

An officer heading the Gujarat’s intelligence bureau in 2002 and in whose tenure the state saw the highest number of encounters must have added to the Centre’s affidavit, said Sinha.

“Just before the Maharashtra elections the Centre filed another affidavit saying it has no objection to an independent inquiry into the case,” he said.