NEW DELHI/HYDERABAD: The Supreme Court-appointed inquiry commission, headed by Justice V S Sirpurkar, has found the 2019 encounter killing of four arrested accused in the rape and murder of a veterinarian in Telangana fake and fastened murder charges against all 10 policemen involved in the act.
Of the four suspects — Mohd Arif, Jollu Shiva, Jollu Naveen and Chintakunta Chennakesavulu — three were minors, the panel further concluded.
All 10 police officers — V Surender, K Narasimha Reddy, Shaik Lal Madhar, Mohammed Sirajuddin, Kocherla Ravi, K Venkateshwarulu, S Arvind Goud, D Janakiram, R Balu Rathod and D Srikanth — are to be tried for the offences under Section 302 read with 34 IPC, 201 read with 302 IPC and 34 IPC, as the analysis of evidence would show that the different acts committed by each of them were done in furtherance of common intention to kill the deceased suspects, the commission said.
Brushing aside objections of Telangana government’s counsel, senior advocate Shyam Divan, a bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justice Hima Kohli transmitted the entire pending proceedings before it to the Telangana HC for appropriate action on the basis of the CoI report and asked CoI’s counsel K Parameswaran to give copies of the inquiry report to parties.
There was a reason for Divan, who had personally opposed ‘sealed cover proceedings’ in many cases, to strenuously oppose making public of the sealed cover report of the Commission of Inquiry, as the panel has rebuked the state government for adopting an attitude of non-cooperation and attempting to prevent the truth from coming out.
In its 387-page report, the commission also concluded that three of the four accused were, contrary to the Telangana government’s claim, minors while holding the cops responsible for destroying or withholding evidence. “The only conclusion that can be drawn from such discrepancies is that the scene of incident may have either been tampered with or the scene has been created to suit the convenience,” it said.
The four accused in the case were killed in an encounter by police on the outskirts of Chatanpally village in Ranga Reddy district on December 6, 2019. The gruesome crime had created widespread outrage with protests and candlelight vigils being organised across the country. The SC had set up Justice Sirpurkar-led CoI, which also had ex-Bombay HC judge Rekha Baldota and ex-CBI director D R Karthikeyan.
The commission said it has “disbelieved the alleged recovery that the deceased suspects assaulted the policemen and attempted to escape” and added that the “action of the police officers in deliberately firing at them is not justified”.
The panel trashed the cops’ claim that the accused, who had no prior experience with guns, snatched police weapons by throwing mud in their eyes and opened fire while running away. It pointed to not finding any bullets or spent cartridges from the encounter site as well as the fact that no cop suffered any bullet injury. It also stated that the nature of the injuries suffered by the two cops did not require admission in the ICU for three days.
The panel said certain incomplete video footage of the incident was produced before it. “There is no explanation by the state as to why the entire footage was not placed. The commission observes that apart from the aforesaid lapses, there seems to have been a deliberate attempt to suppress the truth from emerging,” it said.
“Each one of the cops was responsible for the safekeeping of the four deceased suspects. If either by acts or omissions they failed to fulfil their responsibility, then their common intention to cause the deaths of the suspects is established. Their conduct subsequent to the deaths in falsifying the record would indicate that not only did they act in furtherance of common intention to give false information in order to screen the offenders, but also that they all acted with the common intention to cause the deaths of the suspects,” the commission said.
