Telangana encounter: Families of killed accused move SC, seek criminal action against police

Families of the four rape and murder accused, who were killed in an encounter in Telangana filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking registration of FIR, investigation and criminal action against police personnel who were involved.

The veterinarian was gang-raped and killed by four people before they burnt her body in Telangana's Shamshabad on November 27. Her charred body was recovered a day later.A few days later, the accused were killed in a police encounter. Family of accused -- Jollu Lakshmi mother of Jollu Naveen, Jollu Rajaya father of Jollu Siva, Chinthakuntla kurmanna father of Chinthakuntla chennakesavulu and Pinjari Hussain father of Ahmed have approached the apex court, seeking directions and relief from it.

They sought to quash of FIR registered by the police against the deceased in which police claimed that they had committed crime of attempting to murder police personnel prior to the encounter.

The petitioners were represented by lawyers, P V Krishnamacharya and R Sathish.

The deceased family have also sought a direction for adequate compensation and damages of rupees 50 lakh for each family for extrajudicial killing and custodial death of their sons.

"All the four deceased alleged accused are innocent. The respondent, police have killed these four deceased accused in the fake encounter only to please the public and to destroy the evidence to protect the real culprit as the police have failed to track the real culprit,' the petition claimed.

The petitioners claimed that there is 'no clear or direct evidence to link with the rape and murder"

The petitioners sought directions to restrain the police officials including C V Sajjanar, IPS Commissioner of Police, Cyberabad and Telangana state government from tampering with evidence, intervening into the case of encounter killing and influencing the witnesses.

The top court had last week ordered setting up of a three-member inquiry commission to probe the encounter case and stayed proceeding before Telangana High Court and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) until further orders.

The panel will be headed by a former apex court judge V S Sirpurkar and comprise former Bombay High Court judge Rekha S Baldota and former CBI director D R Karthikeyan.

( With inputs from ANI )