Nellore: Twelve of the 20 woodcutters, allegedly engaged by red sanders smugglers, killed in Tuesday’s encounter near Seshachalam were identified on Wednesday. Relatives of seven of the deceased came from Tiruvannamalai district in Tamil Nadu to Ruia Hospital in Tirupati to collect the bodies on Wednesday evening.
The relatives alleged that the police had detained the victims when they were travelling in a bus near Nagari in Chittoor district on Monday evening and killed them under the pretext of an encounter.
According to Mr Karunakaran, one of the relatives, the seven deceased belonged to Gandhinagar, Padavedu and Anandapuram villages in Polur Taluk of Tiruvannamalai district.
An aged person allegedly travelling with the deceased had alerted the relatives about the detention. “We thought that the police would file some petty case and release them. We realised that they were shot dead after seeing the footage of the incident on television channels,” the distraught relatives said.
Prompted by the version of the relatives, a CPI fact-finding committee demanded a judicial probe into the incident during a demonstration in front of the Ruia Hospital.
People’s forums and human rights activists also staged a protest before the hospital, demanding a comprehensive probe into the incident alleging it to be a fake encounter. Sources in police said that they had identified seven others killed in the encounter with the help of the TN police but their kin were yet to arrive and identify the bodies.
