By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Hyderabad: A new fact finding report by the National Confederation of Human Rights Organizations (NCHRO) has pointed to the loopholes in police version into the ‘encounter’ killings of five Muslim youths by Telangana police.
Five under-trial Muslim youths were killed by Telangana police on April 7 in cold blood in what has been termed as ‘revenge’ killing. Policemen claimed to open fire when the accused tried to snatch a weapon from a policeman in the running vehicle between Aler and Jangaon, about 80 km from Hyderabad in an area bordering Warangal and Nalgonda districts.
Prof A.Marx addressing the media (center). Prathmesh, Adv A . Mohamed Yusuff, Ko. Sugumaran, Reny Ayline, Talaha Hussain Gulbargavi, Muhammad Abdul Ahad (L-R) also sitting.
The persons who lost their lives are Mohammed Viqaruddin, Mohammed Haneef, Amjed Ali, Riyaz Khan all from Hyderabad and Izhar Khan from Uttar Pradesh. All of them were accused of forming a militant organization Tehreek-e-Galba-e-Islami and running a hit squad targeting police officers.
The loopholes pointed out by the NCHRO fact finding team includes questions such as why did the escort team start at 7 am that day when usually such teams start at 11 am?; why did the vehicle stop midway during the 147 kms journey between Warangal and Hyderabad for nature’s call of one of the under-trials when generally no such stops are made?; how can hand-cuffed under-trial prisoners over power 17 strong armed police and try to kill them?; why was no attention paid to under-trials’ complaints about torture and why were they not take to a prison in Hyderabad if they were to attend court daily for 10 days? and that police feared that all these five accused will be acquitted and left free and that they didn’t want that to happen, a release from NCHRO said.
They alleged that the police was worried that all these five accused would be acquitted and hence they were targeted.
The Telangana government is keeping its mouth tightly shut up and the police higher ups were not able to satisfactorily counter the loopholes identified by the activists.
The fact finding team has reiterated the demand for special investigation team, adding that as they were in judicial custody, judiciary too must own up to the responsibility since killing and torture of UT have increased recently.
Click here to read the full fact finding report of NCHRO
Related:
It’s not an encounter, its revenge killing by Telangana police: Advocate of the deceased