Family members of fake Disha encounter victims seek punishment for policemen

Hyderabad: Families of the four accused of a veterinary doctor's gang-rape and murder - and were subsequently killed by police in an encounter - on Friday welcomed the report of the Supreme Court-appointed panel, which called the incident faked.

They demanded that the policemen involved in the killings should get stringent punishment. The families hoped that the Telangana High Court, to whom the Supreme Court transferred the case, would do justice to them.

Parents of the four men said if they had committed any crime, they should have been tried and punished by a court of law, but instead they were murdered in cold blood by the police in the name of instant justice.

They said they had put forth the same arguments before the commission during its hearing in Hyderabad and they are satisfied that the commission agreed with them.

"We had told the commission that the police killed our son and three others in a fake encounter. If they had done any wrong, they should have been punished by the court but police murdered them in a fake encounter," said Jollu Shiva's father Kumaraiah. He hoped that the Telangana High Court would do justice to them.

Mohammed Hussein, father of Mohammed Arif, said the guilty policemen should be punished. "We are confident that the High Court will also do justice. Those who killed them in the fake encounter should get the stringent punishment," he said.

Arif, Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu, Jollu Shiva, and Jollu Naveen were gunned down by the police on December 6, 2019 at Chattanpally near Shadnagar town. Cyberabad police had claimed that the accused snatched weapons and opened fire, forcing the police personnel to retaliate in self-defence.

The four men were allegedly involved in the gang-rape and murder of 27-year-old female veterinary doctor. According to police, Disha (as the victim is referred to by the police) was kidnapped and sexually assaulted near Outer Ring Road on the outskirts of Hyderabad on the night of November 27, 2019. After the sexual assault, the accused murdered her, took the body to Chatanpally and set it afire.

After a thorough probe into the encounter killings, the Supreme Court-appointed Justice V.S. Sirpurkar Commission had submitted its report to the apex court in a sealed cover on January 28 this year. The report, which was made public on Friday when the Supreme Court took up the hearing, says the accused were deliberately fired upon with an intent to cause their death.

The three-member panel has recommended action against 10 police officers who accompanied the four accused to the crime scene early on December 6, 2019.

The commission refused to accept the police version that the accused assaulted the accompanying police officers by allegedly snatching their weapons and firing at them.

"In our considered opinion, the accused were deliberately fired upon with an intent to cause their death and with the knowledge that the firing would invariably result in the death of the deceased suspects," reads the report.

The commission has recommended that police officers V. Surender, K. Narasimha Reddy, Shaik Lal Madhar, Mohammed Sirajuddin, Kocherla Ravi, K. Venkateshwarulu, S. Arvind Goud, D. Janakiram, R. Balu Rathod, and D. Srikanth are to be tried for the offences under Sections 302 (murder) read with 34 IPC, 201 read with 302 IPC and 34 IPC. It noted that the different acts committed by each of them were done in furtherance of common intention to kill the deceased suspects.