Vinay Ranjan Ray said that they could not give any information pertaining to the encounter
Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission Justice K.G. Balakrishnan
Hyderabad: National Human Rights Commission chairman Justice K.G. Balakrishnan pointed out that the commission had noticed that the AP government was reluctant to order magisterial probes through judicial magistrates in many incidents despite an amendment made to the CrPC in 2005 mandating inquiries by judicial magistrates in cases like this.
Additional director general of police Vinay Ranjan Ray said that they could not give any information pertaining to the encounter because there was a restraint order passed by the Hyderabad High Court.
Rejecting his argument, Justice Balakrishnan said, “You cannot take shelter of the High Court by misinterpreting it, the order restrains from divulging the progress of investigation to the media.” He made it clear that the order did not come in the way of the state performing its statutory duties.
Henry Tiphagne from People’s Watch, Jeevan Kumar from Human Rights Forum and D. Suresh Kumar from Civil Liberties Committee had made several complaints against the state and had said that a formal probe into the case had not even started so far despite more than two weeks passing since the encounter.
AP government’s counsel informed the commission that they had decided to constitute a SIT to conduct the probe. While questioning the authorities for not furnishing the information despite its order on April 13, the bench sought to know whether any police personnel had been injured.
Mr Ray replied that 11 policemen had been injured in the exchange of fire and they were shifted to the hospital about 11 am. He admitted that there had been a delay in registering the FIR. The bench noticed that the FIR was issued after 12.30 pm, but the injured were moved to the hospital an hour earlier. The bench asked for medico-legal reports of the police personnel injured, mobile numbers of all the officials, log books and the general diary within two weeks.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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