In the 90’s, Mumbai suffered under the ruthless control of the Mafia, in particular by a gang known as D-Company, and notorious billionaire gang-leader Dawood Ibrahim.

After the gangs incited and enflamed the 1992 riots and the 1993 bombings, a special squad of the Mumbai Police was created and given an unprecedented license to kill.

The result was the complete annihilation of gangsters in Mumbai in situations which became known as ‘Encounters’. The cops became heroes, Bollywood films were based on them, the media sensationalised the killings, with kill-counts for each cop resulting in them competing with each other for the most kills. But in the 2000’s the bubble burst, the cops were called to account for fake ‘encounters’ and extra-judicial killings.

Many of the ‘Encounter Squad’ were jailed or released from service.