Thaindian News

New Delhi, April 4 (IANS) The Supreme Court Monday asked the Andhra Pradesh government to file a status report on its probe into the killing of Communist Party of India-Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad and freelance journalist Hem Chandra Pandey in an alleged exchange of fire with police last year.

An apex court bench of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice R.M. Lodha said it was not casting any aspersions on the probe being carried out by a state deputy superintendent of police, but it may not inspire confidence.

“In this matter, we cannot afford an iota of doubt about the death of these two people. We have to be 100 percent sure what led to their death,” the court said.

It added, “In this matter there are certain points which need clarification and looked into. There are holes”.

The court wanted to know if there was an investigative mechanism under the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) that could be entrusted with the investigation into the case.

The court was not inclined to go by the plea of petitioner Bineeta Pandey, widow of journalist Pandey, for setting up a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the alleged killing of her husband and Azad by police on the night of July 1-2, 2010, in the jungles of Adilabad district of the state.

The court asked her counsel Prashant Bhushan to “find out within the larger structure” the mechanism for investigation into the case, but it said: “We don’t want to make it so large involving the judges of this court or that court.”

The court told Bhushan that “Indian structure is very large and resilient and they have done good work”.

The court asked Bhushan “apart from the post-mortem report what are the other factors which say it was not a genuine encounter”.

The court was told that in an half-hour exchange of fire involving police and 20 Maoists not a single policeman was injured and the bodies of the victims were recovered only the next morning.

Bhushan said the Maoists were not known for abandoning their dead colleagues and doubted the police claim that the victims’ bodies were recovered the next morning.

Appearing for the Andhra Pradesh government, senior counsel Altaf Ahmed said: “These are internal disturbances of various serious nature. We have certain instruments to deal with these challenges and it (security agencies) can’t be allowed to be demoralised.”

In a snub to the state government, the court said: “No amount of internal disturbance can allow you to (kill people)”.

“Provided we have done it,” said senior counsel defending his position.

Posting the matter for April 15, the court asked Bhushan to see what could be the alternatives for conducting the investigations and if the SHRC had an investigating mechanism.

The court also asked Bhushan to place before the court supporting evidence that news channels were reporting Azad’s death right from the morning even before police filed the first information report about recovery of unknown bodies.