Vikram Vedha, starring Hrithik Roshan as Vedha Betaal and Saif Ali Khan as Vikram, an encounter specialist, released in theatres on September 30, 2022.

The interesting legend of King Vikramaditya and the spirit Betaal is retold by the upright Inspector Vikram played by Saif Ali Khan and the anti-hero Vedha Betal played by Hrithik Roshan.

Vikram Vedha, directed by Pushkar-Gayatri, is a Hindi remake of their 2017 Tamil film of the same name. The original featured R Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi in the lead roles. Vikram Vedha is backed by YNOT Studios, Friday Filmworks, Bhushan Kumar under T-Series Films, and Reliance Entertainment.

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What is an encounter specialist?

In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, the term “encounter killing” has been in use since the late 20th century to describe extrajudicial killings committed by the police or the armed forces, ostensibly in self-defense when they come into contact with suspected gangsters or terrorists in a shootout. Police officers are occasionally killed by criminals during interactions.

The Mumbai Police officers responsible for these murders earned a reputation as “encounter specialists.”

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Police have been accused of arranging fictitious interactions to hide the death of people who were either in custody, were unarmed, or had surrendered, according to critics who are sceptical of the police motivation behind many of these reported occurrences.

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The Mumbai Police utilised encounter killings to target the local underworld between the 1990s and the mid-2000s, and other major cities soon adopted the tactic. Particularly in Karachi, the Sindh Police in Pakistan are renowned for carrying out extrajudicial killings through staged encounters.

According to data from the National Human Rights Commission of India, there have been 813 cases of encounter killings in India between the years 2016–17 and 2021–22, or one every three days. Additionally, during these six years, no authorities were found guilty.