The squads have been disbanded on the orders of Police Commissioner R H Mendonca, giving human rights groups an added impetus in their effort to pin numerous fake encounter killings on the collective conscience of the men in uniform.

The special squad of the North-West region, led by Assistant Police Inspector Pradeep Sharma in the jurisdiction of Additional Commissioner of Police Satyapal Singh, which comprised five officers and six constables, was disbanded earlier this week.

The special squad of Zone-V, led by Inspector Prakash George under the jurisdiction of Deputy Commissioner of Police S S Kemkar, comprised five officers and 10 constables, was disbanded on Thursday.

No orders have been passed on theother two squads, both in Zone-II, under the jurisdiction of Deputy Commissioner of Police Param Bir Singh and led by Assistant Police Inspectors Praful Bhosale and Vijay Salaskar.

The special squad in the North-West region was set up in 1996 while the other three were instituted in 1997.

While the abrupt move to dissolve the two crack teams is being interpreted as a victory for human rights groups, senior police officials say they have met their end to compensate for the manpower crunch in the police force.Additional Commissioner of Police (North-West) Satyapal Singh, told Express Newsline: ``The squad members had nothing much to do since the last four months and were therefore disbanded.''

Says DCP Kemkar of Zone-V: ``We had to disband them because we had a shortage of manpower.''

But human rights activists attribute the development to the campaign they have mounted against the Mumbai police whom they accuse of wielding the gun to circumvent and subvert the law.

In fact, the Bombay High Court setup an Enquiry Commission four months ago to investigate the circumstances of the killings of Gangsters Sada Pawle, Vijay Tandel and Javed Fawda in what the police claim were encounter deaths.

The special squad in North-West had notched up 19 killings and 22 arrests while the two squads in Zone-II are credited with 30 hits. The latter also account for the death of gangsters Pawle, Tandel and Ganesh Vakil while its counterpart in Zone-V is responsible for the death of three gangsters.

None of them have augmented their records since the Enquiry Commission was set up. Before the teams themselves were set up, encounter deaths were undertaken by the local police and the Crime Branch.

Says Advocate P A Sebastian of the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR), a petitioner in the encounter deaths case: ``Forming squads for such purposes is indicative of a decision of the police to take the law into its own hands. Those who execute such acts themselves sit in judgement by such methods, adding thatencounters are a ``subversion of the rule of law''.

While Sharma and his colleagues Nitin Vichare and Arun Borude have been absorbed by the Andheri police station, Sunil Mane has been inducted in the Oshiwara police station. However, Daya Naik has left for his native village to get married.

Officers of the squad in Zone-V have also been accommodated in various police stations. George and Rajaram Wanmane now report to the Trombay police station, while Shailesh Pasalwar and Uttam Kolhekar are with the Chembur police. Sohail Buddha has been transferred to the Shivaji Nagar police station.

The teams themselves have no nomenclature, having been dubbed `special squads' as they evolved. They were instituted with the express purpose of gathering intelligence on criminals and tracking them down. ``Now, we have stopped hunting criminals because we ourselves are being hunted. it is better that we do bandobast duty than bust gangs,'' says an officer of the erstwhile Zone-V squad.