The Human Rights Forum (HRF), a citizen’s group, has urged the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to direct the Andhra Pradesh government to file cases of culpable homicide amounting to murder against all police personnel responsible for the 19 “encounters” in Guntur and Kurnool districts and hand over the cases to the CBI.
“We therefore urge upon the NHRC to also recommend to the AP government that the Central Bureau of Investigation be asked to take up investigation.This would be fully in accordance with the spirit of the NHRC’s 1996 order,” the forum stated in a letter.
It said that citizens must be tried “in accordance with a procedure laid down by the law of the land” and that “none can be subjected to extra-judicial liquidation by the state, which will be contrary to articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.”
The forum also said the compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the kin of the 13 victims, as recommended by NHRC in response to a petition filed by the Guntur district unit of HRF on July 11, 2002, does not fulfill “requirement of the law.” It also stated that “in case of encounters, following the report of the police officer who committed the killings and who thereupon goes to the local police station to give his report, a case of culpable homicide amounting to murder and other appropriate sections of the IPC has to be booked against him as well as all members of the police party, if any, that he was part of.”
Recently, NHRC reopened a case of fake encounters against a senior IPS officer P S R Anjaneyulu and decided to hear the charges against him afresh.
The Chairman of NHRC, Justice K G Balakrishnan, has referred a petition to the division bench of the commission seeking reopening of all files related to the alleged fake encounters in Kurnool and Guntur districts between 2000 and 2002.