Pinnacle court panel noted that Hyderabad encounter was fake, cops should be tried for murder

20-05-2022

The commission also found that the police were aware that a minimum of two of the accused were minors, and yet they opened fire with an intention to kill them.

The Justice Sirpurkar panel probing the Hyderabad encounter case has said that the shooting of the four people accused within the Hyderabad rape and murder case was a ‘fake encounter’ and an extra-judicial killing, adding that the ten cops who were at the spot should be tried for murder. The panel report was submitted before the Supreme Court on Friday, May 20, and therefore the Supreme Court had said that the report is created available to both parties, despite the opposition of the Telangana government counsel in court.

The three-member panel to probe the extra-judicial killings was founded on December 12, 2019, after four accused within the brutal Hyderabad rape case were shot dead in an agricultural field located near the scene of the crime. The four accused were identified as Mohammed Arif, Jollu Shiva, Jollu Naveen, and Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu. The police had then said that the four accused were trying to escape, and had to be gunned down. However, their version was contested in court, and therefore the Supreme Court founded a panel headed by retired judge Justice VS Sirpurkar, and with Justices Rekha P Sondur Baldota, and Dr D R Kaarthikeyan as members. Now, the commission has found that the Hyderabad police’s version of the sequence of events was concocted and wrought with contradictions and loopholes. 

The commission has recommended that the ten cops who were involved within the killings should be booked and tried for murder, as they'd opened fire on them with an intention to kill them. “The different acts committed by each of them were tired furtherance of common intention to kill the deceased suspects,” the commission has held, adding that they ought to even be booked for criminal conspiracy, causing disappearance of evidence, and for giving false information to shield the offender. The ten police officials who face action are V Surender, K Narasimha Reddy, Shaik Lal Madhar, Mohammed Sirajuddin, Kocherla Ravi, K Venkateswarlu, S Arvind Goud, D Janakiram, R Balu Rathod and D Srikanth.

The commission has held that the deceased accused within the case “were deliberately fired upon with an intent to cause their death and with the knowledge that the firing would invariably end in the death of the deceased suspect.”

The police had alleged that the accused fired upon them while trying to escape from police custody, so that they had to fire in self-defence. The commission has rejected this version, calling it concocted and unbelievable.

“It can't be said that the police party fired in self-defence or during a bid to re-arrest the deceased suspects. The record shows that the whole version of the police party beginning from the house to the incident at Chatanpally is concocted. it had been impossible for the deceased suspects to own snatched the weapons of the police and that they couldn't have operated the firearms. Therefore, the whole version is unbelievable,” the commission said within the report. 

The commission said it's considered the fabric on record, and concluded that the deceased accused didn't commit any offence like snatching the weapons, or attempting to flee from custody, or assaulting and firing at the police party. 

The commission has also found that three of the four accused were minors at the time of the incident. The commission went through documents and evidence to ascertain their ages, and has said that Jollu Shiva, Jollu Naveen and Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu were minors after they were gunned down by the police, while the fourth accused Mohammed Arif was 26 years old. Additionally, the commission has also found that the police were okay conscious of the ages of two of the accused, and yet the police opened fire at them. 

The four accused were shot dead within the early hours of December 6, 2019. they'd been arrested every week before in reference to the rape of a Hyderabad veterinarian. On November 27, a 26-year-old veterinarian from Hyderabad was brutally gang-raped and killed allegedly by the four-member gang, who were natives of Narayanpet district, at Thondupally toll gate on Outer circumferential, Shamshabad. 

The police had said that the four people, who were driving a lorry, had trapped her by deflating one in every of the tyres of her two-wheeler which she had parked near the toll gate. Around 9 pm, when she reached the spot to require her vehicle, she noticed the flat tyre. The gang approached her saying they'd help her fix the tyre. They forcibly took her to nearby bushes, assaulted her and killed her.

Her burnt body was discovered near the outskirts of Hyderabad, near Shadnagar, and shortly after, these four accused were arrested by the police. The police had said that on December 6, 2019, the accused were taken to the scene of the crime once they snatched their weapons and fired upon them while trying to escape, and then the police had to shoot at them in self-defence. The four accused were killed on the spot.