Nellore: Referring to the various aspects that seemed out of place in Tuesday’s encounter, a fact-finding panel of the CPI, after inspecting the encounter sites on Tuesday, alleged that it was a fake encounter.
CPI state executive committee member P. Harinath Reddy, Chittoor district unit president A. Rama Naidu and city party secretary R. Venkaiah slammed the police for gunning down “poor labourers” instead of taking stern action against the smugglers who had hired them.
They observed that the bullet wounds would have been on different parts of the body if there had been an attack by the smugglers.
Former Tirupati MP Dr Chinta Mohan alleged that it was a government-sponsored violence and all the deceased were Dalits. He maintained that it was a fake encounter stressing that woodcutters would have surrendered if the cops fired in the air.
He said that he took the issue to the notice of the chairperson of National Human Rights Commission K.G. Balakrishnan and he had assured a probe into the encounter.
He compared the incident with the massacre of Dalits in Tsundur decades back. The former MP also stressed that the police had tied the hands of the woodcutters and shot them.
Meanwhile, Chittoor district collector Siddarth Jain has ordered an inquiry into the encounter and has posted district revenue officer Vijaya Chander as the inquiry officer.
