Counterview Desk
In an announcement, activists from the Telangana Girls and Transgender Organizations Joint Motion Committee (WT-JAC), commenting on the Supreme Court docket-appointed Fee Report within the ‘Disha Encounter’ Case, wherein 4 younger individuals have been killed on December 6, 2019 in Telangana, have insisted that FIR be registered towards all of the policemen “particularly named and indicted by the Fee they usually be arrested.”
Signed by petitioners earlier than the Apex Court docket Okay Sajaya, V Sandhya, M Vimala and Meera Sanghamitra, the assertion, whilst welcoming the Fee’s Report for “upholding ‘rule of legislation’ and recommending prison motion towards 10 policemen responsible of homicide of 4 individuals, together with 3 minor boys”, says, “We remind the senior cops, political leaders and celebrities who applauded this faux encounter, that as social activists, we are going to maintain them accountable and accountable to safe our proper to justice, whereas difficult unconstitutional strategies of ‘looking for justice’.”
Textual content:
The Justice VS Sirpurkar Fee of Inquiry on the ‘encounter’ killings of 4 younger individuals (who have been accused of rape and homicide of a younger physician) on sixth Dec, 2019 in Hyderabad has submitted its report back to the Supreme Court docket. Referring again the matter to the Telangana Excessive Court docket, the Apex Court docket directed on twentieth Could that copies of the Report be made out there to the events, which incorporates the undersigned, members of WT-JAC Telangana.
After meticulously learning 1000’s of pages of documentary, forensic proof and cross-examining almost 140 people, the Fee beneficial that each one the ten police personnel who have been concerned within the killing of the 4 younger males should face trial for homicide “underneath Part 302 r/w 34 IPC, 201 r/w 302 IPC and 34 IPC”. The Fee concluded that the 4 youth have been intentionally fired upon by the police with an intent to trigger their loss of life and with the information that the firing would consequence of their loss of life. It additionally held that the accused didn’t snatch any weapons from the police get together and therefore the declare of firing in ‘self-defence’ is fake.
The Fee unambiguously states, “Every considered one of them have been chargeable for the secure holding of the 4 deceased suspects. If both by acts or omissions they did not fulfil their accountability, then their frequent intention to trigger the deaths of the deceased suspects is established. Their conduct subsequent to the deaths of the deceased suspects in falsifying the document would point out that not solely did they act in furtherance of frequent intention to provide false info with a view to display screen the offenders but additionally that, all of them acted with the frequent intention to trigger the deaths of the 4 deceased suspects.”
It might be recalled that the Cyberabad police picked up the 4 suspects (Mohd. Arif, Chintakunta Chennakesavulu, Jollu Shiva and Jollu Naveen) from their houses in the course of the evening, a day after the 25-year-old veterinarian, Disha’s charred stays have been discovered underneath a bridge at Chatanpally on the outskirts of Hyderabad on twenty eighth Nov, 2019. Within the wee hours of sixth Dec, 2019, the 4 younger individuals have been killed in an alleged ‘encounter’ by the police.
The identical night, 15 girls’s rights and civil rights activists of Telangana together with the undersigned approached the Excessive Court docket by way of a letter which was transformed into WP(PIL) No.173 of 2019. The activists prayed for preservation of the lifeless our bodies, unbiased post-mortem, compliance of SC’s tips in PUCL vs Union of India, court-monitored probe and prosecution of the responsible officers for homicide. The Excessive Court docket instantly responded and directed that the our bodies be preserved and subsequently handed Orders for implementation of PUCL tips.
Even because the Telangana Excessive Court docket was seized of the matter, a Writ Petition was moved earlier than the Supreme Court docket looking for inquiry into the mentioned ‘encounter’. On twelfth December 2019, the Apex Court docket constituted the 3-member Fee of Inquiry, headed by Justice VS Sirpurkar, with Justice Rekha Baldota (former Mumbai HC decide) and Dr. D.R. Karthikeyan (former CBI Director) as the opposite members. Because the Order of the Apex Court docket was silent in regards to the lifeless our bodies of the 4 younger males and assortment of proof, 4 of the undersigned activists together with Okay Sajaya, V Sandhya, M Vimala and Meera Sanghamitra moved WP (Crl) 364/2019 earlier than the Apex Court docket looking for instructions for assortment, preservation, and secure custody of proof. The Supreme Court docket directed these 4 candidates to method the Excessive Court docket. Subsequently, Okay Sajaya moved an utility earlier than the Telangana Excessive Court docket looking for instructions on preservation and assortment of proof. The Telangana Excessive courtroom handed detailed Orders in respect of a second post-mortem, seizure and preservation of proof.
The Fee started its hearings on twenty first August 2021 within the premises of the Excessive Court docket of Telangana. For the reason that pandemic was nonetheless raging, the Fee resorted to a hybrid type of proceedings which mixed bodily and digital hearings. On behalf of the undersigned, Okay Sajaya filed an affidavit, deposed earlier than the Fee on 13-09-2021 and made detailed written submissions to the Fee. From August to November 2021, the proceedings of the Fee have been frequently reported within the English and Telugu media. Advocates Vrinda Grover, Vasudha Nagaraj and Soutik Banerjee, spearheaded the authorized case and represented the activists earlier than the Supreme Court docket, Telangana Excessive Court docket and the Fee of Inquiry.
The Fee’s report which runs into 387 pages exposes a sequence of violations of procedures of arrest, remand, investigation, the worst of them being the wilful side-lining of the truth that three of the suspects have been minors as per their faculty information. Senior officers of the police division who have been heading operations throughout this incident, and the SIT officers who performed an “inquiry” that merely tried to associate with the narrative put out by the police division, haven’t been particularly beneficial for any punitive motion by the Fee, however the proof is compiled intimately.
At a time when state authorities are more and more resorting to extra-judicial strategies, the Fee’s observations that “Simply as Mob Lynching is unacceptable, so is any thought of immediate justice. At any level of time Rule of Legislation should prevail. Punishment for crime must be solely by the process established by legislation”, assumes nice significance. Whereas we recognize the arduous job undertaken by the Fee and welcome the Report, we really feel it falls in need of naming and recommending related motion towards the senior-most police officers in-charge of the investigation, encounter and cover-up of proof.
Within the gentle of the Fee’s findings, pending additional motion by the Excessive Court docket of Telangana to whom the Supreme Court docket has referred the problem:
- We demand that an FIR be registered instantly towards all of the policemen particularly named and indicted by the Fee they usually be arrested.
- We urge the Hon’ble Excessive Court docket to take steps for prosecution of the ten policemen on fast-track to repair accountability of all police personnel, together with ascribe command accountability of senior most officers, for the lack of life and restore public confidence within the rule of legislation.
- We name for fast investigation into the brutal homicide of Disha, which bought invisibilised due to the killings of the 4 suspects.
- We demand that the households of all of the 4 individuals killed be offered exemplary compensation by the State, in addition to Govt employment to at least one particular person in every household.
- We demand that the state authorities take all crucial measures to safeguard rights of ladies by means of due technique of legislation. We strongly condemn that within the identify of ‘making certain security and freedom for girls’, the police and state are creating lawlessness and circumventing the rule of legislation, by resorting to extra-judicial killings of accused, which might by no means convey justice to the wronged girls / survivors of violence and their households.
We remind the senior cops, political leaders and celebrities who applauded this faux encounter, that as social activists, we are going to maintain them accountable and accountable to safe our proper to justice, whereas difficult unconstitutional strategies of ‘looking for justice’.
