Date:28/10/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/10/28/stories/2003102802520400.htm

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Probe encounter killings: APCLC

By Our Staff Reporter

ONGOLE OCT. 27. The Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC) has demanded an inquiry by a sitting High Court Judge into the two separate encounters in Prakasam and Guntur districts recently in which three naxalites were killed.

In a statement released here on Monday, the APCLC joint secretary, G. Venkat Rao, said as alleged by the relatives of the slain naxalites, circumstances leading to their killing indicated that they were held elsewhere and bumped off by the police. He said going by the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu's statement after the ghat road incident at Tirumala, that he would not recommit mistakes done in the past, intellectuals and democrats hoped that fake encounters would stop.

On the contrary, three naxalites, Radhakka and Koumudi, were killed in the Karampudi encounter in Guntur district, while Sandhya of Palavanka Dalam was gunned down in a reported encounter at Ganjivaripalli under the Yerragondapalem police station limits on Friday. Mr. Rao said killing naxalites in fake encounters after nabbing them elsewhere was undemocratic and unlawful.

He suggested that the Government reinitiate steps for holding talks with the naxalites considering the issue to be a socio-economic one, to end violence in the State. The series of encounters and counter attacks by naxalites only worsened the issue.

In a separate release, the CPI(ML)--New Democracy district secretary, Chittipati Venkateswarlu, strongly condemned the killings. He termed the encounters fake, as the police concocted a story after arresting Koumudi and Radhakka in Visakhapatnam and then gunned them down in Guntur district. He said political leaders who had extolled democracy and decried naxalite violence in the wake of the Alipiri incident, should also condemn killings in fake encounters by the police.

He said it was strange that on one hand the Government was continuing repressive measures and on the other inviting naxalites to join the social mainstream. It only exposed the dual standards of the Government, he said. He said after the Alipiri incident, the police have turned over-enthusiastic in killing innocents in the fake encounters only to propitiate the Chief Minister.