The Supreme Court on Friday admitted a set of petitions for a judicial probe into the alleged “fake encounter” death of Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad by the Andhra Pradesh police and issued notices to the state government and the Centre, with a strong observation that the Indian republic does not permit such killings of its own children.
“We hope there will be good response to the questions (raised in the petitions). Our republic can’t bear the stains to kill its own children,” a bench of Justices Aftab Alam and R.M. Lodha said during a brief hearing while giving the state and Centre six weeks’ time to submit their affidavits.
The Centre and the Andhra government were required to explain with “substantial evidence” the state police claim that the encounter was not fake, as alleged in the petitions by Bineeta Pandey, widow of journalist Hemchandra Pandey (who was killed along with Azad), and Arya Samaj leader Swami Agnivesh, who is trying to mediate between the Centre and the Maoists to end the armed conflict and bring the Naxalites to the negotiating table.
The petitioners have raised serious doubts over the encounter by the Andhra police in the intervening night of July 1-2, 2010 and urged the country’s highest court to order a “judicial inquiry” to ascertain the truth.
The petitioners claimed that a private investigation by the “Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisations”, a national coalition of human rights bodies, had indicated the encounter was not a “genuine” one but was “stage-managed”. “Both the deceased were killed by the Andhra Pradesh police in blatant violation of their rights under Articles
14 and 21 of the Constitution,” the petitioners said.
The petitioners questioned the very basis of the FIR registered by the state police, which claimed that the encounter took place following “intelligence inputs” that a group of 20 Maoists had crossed over to Andhra from Maharashtra, and that when a search party had gone to the area, it was ambushed.
The police claimed the recovery of the bodies of Azad and Pandey the morning after the operation, and said a AK-47 had also been found lying next to Azad’s body.