Panel points to discrepancies in police claim, calls it ‘unbelievable’

Srinivasa Rao Apparasu

HYDERABAD: “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.

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 also wondered why there were no empty cartridges at the encounter spot.