Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court has ordered the AP and Telangana police to preserve the bodies of Maoists who were killed in an encounter during a joint combing operation by the Greyhounds and the Odisha police at Malkangiri in Odisha on October 23 night till Thursday, in case any of the bodies are brought inside AP and Telangana.
A division bench comprising Acting CJ Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice A. Shankar Narayana was dealing with a petition by AP Civil Liberties Committee general secretary C. Chandrasekhar seeking declaration of the police action of conducting a hasty post-mortem without following legal procedures and also not taking steps for preserving the bodies of the dead as illegal.
Counsel V. Raghunath who appeared for the petitioner told the court according to preliminary information the police indiscriminately opened fire at a group of Maoists who had gathered in the forests without any warning.
He said the bodies were dumped in a hospital where there were no basic facilities and as per the statement of the DGP so far only three bodies have been identified. He told the court that in the spite of the ruthless killings one would at least expect proper preservation and identification of the bodies and handing over to relatives.
He said that AP and Odisha are conflict zones and that governments have to follow International Humanitar-ian Law. Counsel V. Raghunath urged the court to direct the authorities to preserve the bodies and to conduct post-mortem as per guidelines of the SC and the NHRC and also to book murder cases against the police personnel involved.
AP advocate general Dammalapati Srinivas submitted that as per information the encounter took place within the jurisdiction of the Odisha police and the AP police have no definite information on whether the bodies would be brought to AP or Telangana or not.
The bench told the police to preserve the bodies till October 27 in case they are brought within the boundaries of both states. The bench adjourned the case to October 26.
