Telangana High Court orders re-postmortem on 3 dead bodies of the Maoists

Hyderabad: The High Court on Thursday ordered for the "re-postmortem" on the three bodies of the Maoists, who were allegedly killed in an encounter which occurred in the Chennapuram Forest Area in Cherla mandal of Bhadradri Kothagudem on Wednesday.

The Division Bench headed by Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice Bollam Vijaysen Reddy was adjudicating the Lunch Motion Public Interest Litigation, moved by the Civil Liberties Committee. The petitioner in the PIL, Prof. Gaddam Laxman, through his counsel Verose Raghunath, informed the Bench that all the three persons who were killed in an exchange of fire between police and alleged Maoists, were tribals and they are yet to be identified.

As per the SP, Bhadradri Kothagudem, the Police got a clue that the alleged Maoists were moving in the forest area and taking a cue, the police went into the forest and participated in the exchange of fire, which resulted in the death of three Maoists (Two women and one male) and the authenticity of the encounter has to be found out, the counsel urged the court. Further, counsel Verose Raghunath prayed the Court that the re-postmortem be ordered, which should be done by the forensic science experts who are available at the MGM, Warangal because the Area Hospital at Bhadradri Kothagudem does not have the facilities to perform a re-postmortem and there are no forensic science experts.

Raghunath, counsel for the petitioner, while relying on the recent judgment of the High Court of Telangana, which had ordered a re-postmortem in a similar case informed the Bench that a re-postmortem has to be ordered so as to arrive at a factual conclusion on the authenticity of the encounter.

As the dead bodies are still unidentified, a direction should be given for publicising this issue in media channels and newspapers, publish the photographs of the deceased in all daily newspapers for identification of the dead bodies by the family members of the deceased and urged the Court to issue a direction for registering FIR against the police officers under Sec. 302 IPC for culpable homicide. The matter is adjourned to November 5 for next hearing.