The Supreme Court-appointed committee has held that the 2019 Hyderabad encounter was fake and recommended that the ten police officers in charge of the case be tried for murder for the killing of four rape and murder accused.
According to the reports, the Supreme Court-appointed panel on Friday said that the four accused of gang rape and murder of a 27-year-old veterinarian, who was killed in a police encounter in Hyderabad were “deliberately fired upon with an intent to cause their death”.
In 2019, a 27-year-old veterinarian was kidnapped, raped and murdered near a toll plaza at Tondupally, Shamshabad, and her body was dumped and burnt at Chatanpally near Shadnagar, located on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
“In our considered opinion, the accused were deliberately fired upon with an intent to cause their death and with the knowledge that the firing would invariably result in the death of the deceased suspect. We are of the opinion that at the relevant time, Jolu Shiva, Jolu Naveen, and Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu were minors,” the Supreme Court-appointed panel said
The commission also pointed out lapses in the investigation and recommended that ten policemen be tried for murder. Three of the four rape-accused were minors, the report said.
The SC has ordered the sharing of the sealed cover report of the three-member inquiry commission on the encounter killings and transferred the matter to the Telangana High Court to take appropriate action.
The Supreme Court had set up the panel on December 12, 2019, to examine the circumstances that led to the encounters and had asked to submit the report in six months. Later, the commission, headed by former SC judge VS Sirpurkar, was granted six months by the apex court to file the final report on the encounter killings.
The commission members include former Bombay High Court judge Rekha Sondur Baldota and former CBI director DR Karthikeyan.
Hyderabad encounter
The four accused – Mohammed Arif, Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu, Jolu Shiva and Jolu Naveen – were arrested for gang-raping and murder of a veterinary doctor in November 2019. On December 6, 2019, the Telangana police said all the four accused were killed in an encounter.
The Hyderabad police had gunned down all the four accused in an encounter on the NH-44 near Hyderabad, where the investigating officials took them to recreate the crime scene. The police had said that they had shot the accused in self-defence as they had snatched weapons and were trying to escape.
