By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Hyderabad: The writ petition filed by families of encounter victims got adjourned till April 28 as nervous Telanagna government dragged on its time bargain. Victims’ counsel protested the government’s attitude in playing hide and seek over such an urgent burning issue.
Mohammed Ahmed, father of Viquar Ahmed, along with two other families had filed a petition in the Hyderabad High Court on April 15 seeking directions from the court to the Telangana government to order a CBI probe, to register a case under 302 (murder) of IPC and to exhume the dead bodies for re-post-mortem.
Five under trials, accused in terror cases – namely Mohammed Viqaruddin, Amjed Ali, Mohammed Haneef, Riyaz Khan and Izhar Khan – were shot dead on April 7 while they were being shifted from Warangal prison to Hyderabad criminal court for a trial. Police claimed to have opened fire when the accused tried to snatch a weapon from a policeman in the running vehicle between Aler and Jangaon, about 80 kms from Hyderabad, in an area bordering Warangal and Nalgonda districts. However, their families, lawyers and civil rights activists find the police version questionable and have termed it as a ‘revenge’ and ‘retaliation’ against the death of cops in another encounter few days earlier.
The writ petition (number 10759 of 2015) came up for hearing on Thursday before Justice A V Sesha Sai as the presiding judge Justice Vilas V Afzalpurkar was on leave. Justice Shesha Sai acknowledging the critical nature of the writ and was ready to transfer it before the divisional bench of the High Court, but the Additional Advocate General J Ramchadra Rao objected to the move.
Additional AG sought two more weeks’ time to file the governments counter-reply in the case, even though in the earlier hearing on April 16, Justice Afzalpurkar had already granted a week’s time to the government for the same.
It is relevant to mention here that Aler encounter of the under trial youths in
Telanagana and Seshachalam encounter of 20 alleged wood cutters in Andhra Pradesh occurred on same day – April 7. But, in Seshachalam encounter case, division bench of Chief Justice has already passed two interim directions of registering murder case against police officers and for a repost mortem, and the case is heard every alternate day since it was filed. In contrast, Aler encounter of the under trials is getting adjourned week after week without any relief to the victim families.
Counsel for the petitioners V Raghunath vehemently protested the government’s attitude towards the case. Counsel reminded the court that interim prayer of the victims’ families is for re-post mortem, which is utmost urgent as the buried bodies will soon start to decompose.
There was an uptight situation in the court hall when counsel for the families called the encounter a ‘judicial murder’ in a desperate way calling the attention of the court on the killing of five under trial youths as they were in judicial custody. Additional Advocate General objected to the phrase ‘judicial murder’ and tried to divert the issue towards court’s prestige.
Justice Shesha Sai not prolonging the verbal dual, gave the government one final week to file its reply covering the issues of registering of murder case against police officers, CBI inquiry and the contentious re-post mortem prayer of the victims’ families.
Speaking with TwoCircles.net, advocate Raghunath criticized the government for not owning up the responsibility of at least giving a reply to the court of law. He said they are positive on getting an interim relief on the next hearing and will push hard for it as the High Court vacations are going to begin from May 3 leaving not a fair room for any kind of prolonged delay.
Related:
Government contests re-post-mortem demand, High Court asks why no case registered