The shooting of four gang-rape and murder suspects by Indian police has highlighted the scourge of extrajudicial killings in a nation grappling with high levels of sexual crimes and a notoriously slow judicial process.
But human rights campaigners warned of a deepening culture of impunity as police take the law into their own hands. Scores of movies depict them as tough men and glorify their"kills", particularly relating to the deaths of hundreds of alleged gang members in Bollywood's capital Mumbai in the 1990s. Campaigners say the number of those who actually die at the hands of the police is far higher, with many deaths categorised as suicide or from natural causes.
It is also hearing a petition on the"staged killings" of at least 58 suspects in Uttar Pradesh since 2017 after the state government adopted what it called"no-mercy" tactics to battle crime.