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Hyderabad encounter: Panel points to discrepancies in police claim
Hyderabad encounter case: The four persons – Mohd Arif, Jollu Shiva, Jollu Naveen and Chintakunta Chennakesavulu – were killed in an “exchange of fire,” eight days after they allegedly gangraped a veterinarian at Shamshabad and burnt her alive in Chatanpally.
“The entire version of the police was concocted and unbelievable.”
This was the observation made by a three-member inquiry commission, headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice V S Sirpurkar, which was constituted by the top court to investigate the killing of four persons by police in an encounter in Chatanpally village near Shadnagar in Rangareddy district, about 50 km from Hyderabad, on December 6, 2019.
The four persons – Mohd Arif, Jollu Shiva, Jollu Naveen and Chintakunta Chennakesavulu – were killed in an “exchange of fire,” eight days after they allegedly gangraped a veterinarian at Shamshabad and burnt her alive in Chatanpally.
The inquiry commission, which extensively probed the case and cross-examined several witnesses including the 10 policemen who took part in the encounter, said records clearly established that the entire version of police that they had fired in self-defence or in a bid to re-arrest the suspects was fabricated.
“It was impossible for the deceased suspects to have snatched the weapons of the police and they could not have operated the fire arms. It is unbelievable,” the commission said in its 387-page report.
After extensively going through the series of events that led to the killing of the four rape and murder suspects, the commission observed there are multiple discrepancies in police versions in all crucial aspects – from shifting of the accused from Hyderabad to Chatanpally, the manner in which the police party travelled to the fifth bund, where the encounter took place, recovery of articles belonging to the rape victim and the command to fire at the suspects.
The commission suspected the intentions of the police in taking a guest house outside Shadnagar on December 3 to keep the four suspects for interrogation. The police, in their affidavits, said they had to take a “safe place” on rent for the accused, as they apprehended some trouble from the public. The commission, however, found that there was no such practice of hiring a guest house for the accused in the past.
The commission said then Cyberabad commissioner, V C Sajjannar, had allotted a 29-member escort team consisting of one additional commissioner of police, four inspectors, five sub-inspectors, four head constables and 15 police constables to manage the crowd and protect the accused. He also arranged six long-range weapons for the team.
Majority of the team members at the time of the encounter were officers trained for handling organised crimes, the commission observed. Interestingly, the accused were not interrogated till the night of December 5, it said, after an intense interrogation of police authorities.
Quoting the investigation done by police, the commission pointed out that the four rape and murder accused on November 29 had told police that they had hidden the articles of the woman, including her mobile phone, power bank and wrist watch “in the bushes at some distance from the place where her body was burnt”.
The police, however, had taken the accused to the incident spot only on the night of December 5. They told the commission that they could not recover the articles because of the presence of a mob in and around the area.
“Though the accused could not be taken out during day time in view of the threat posed by the agitated mob, police could have taken the accused from the central prison straight to the place during evening hours,” the commission felt.
The commission also found a lot of discrepancies in the police version on shifting of the accused from the guest house to the encounter site at Chatanpally in a bus. Some witnesses said the bus started at 8 pm on December 5, while others said it started between 3 am and 4.30 am on December 6. There were discrepancies in the time taken for travel also, though the distance was only 60 km which could be covered in 60 to 90 minutes.
The commission further found a lot of contradictions on the topography of the place where the exchange of fire took place. Police told the commission that the accused had led the police party to the fifth bund adjacent to the national highway where they had reportedly hidden the victim’s objects.
As per the police version, when a cop was digging an area from where some articles were found, one of the accused, Md Arif, assaulted him and snatched his service pistol from his left side waist and hinted to the other accused to run by shouting “guys run,”. He also hurled dust and sand into the eyes of police officers and other witnesses. They said another accused, Jollu Shiva, beat another constable with a stick while Jollu Naveen hit a cop with a stone. Chennakesavulu snatched the service pistol of another cop, they said.
“Even as the cops were wiping dust from their eyes, the accused started running while firing at the cops. The senior official asked them to surrender, but they did not listen and he asked his colleague to fire in the air as a caution warning. Yet, the accused continued to fire and in a bid to re-arrest the fleeing accused and to save the lives of the police team, he directed three other cops to open counter firing. After about five minutes, there was a lull from the side of the accused and all the four accused were found dead with bullet injuries,” the commission said, quoting the police version.
The area from where the victim’s articles were recovered and the place where the exchange of fire took place were not marked in the sketch. It pointed out that the police commissioner had told the media on the evening of the encounter that the items were recovered from behind the bushes, which was different from the encounter spot.
The commission also wondered why there were no empty cartridges at the encounter spot. “It is not possible for the suspects to have operated the firearms. Even if they could operate the firearms, their aim would only be to escape. They would not stand and enter into an exchange of fire with the police. Therefore, it has to be held that the deceased suspects could not have fired and run away simultaneously,” the commission added.
