No exchange of fire at the encounter location: HRF

A three-member fact finding team of the Human Rights Forum (HRF) which visited the Karakagudem area in Bhadradri-Kothagudem district, where six Maoists were gunned down on September 5, 2024, claimed that there was no exchange of fire on the day.

Citing the testimonies of people from several villages in the Karakagudem and Pinapaka mandals, the team said it was a case of unilateral firing by the police personnel against a Maoist armed squad in the thickly wooded area at the break of dawn. All the six deceased were Adivasi Maoists, it pointed out.

HRF, through a statement, has demanded criminal prosecution of police personnel who participated in the ‘encounter’. A case in respect of murder and also relevant sections of the SC, ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has to be registered against them, it said.

Whether the accused police fired in legitimate self-defence, as they have been claiming, or the plea of self-defence is invalid, is to be decided in a court of law, the statement said.

HRF has also taken strong objection to the police blocking access to the media into the area where the killings took place, which it said was unprecedented in the context of ‘encounter’ killings in the State of Telangana.

“What is also extremely perturbing is the tangible fear among residents in the area, mostly Adivasis of the Koya tribe. Local Adivasis have told us that the police keep constant vigil making it risky to speak out. Also, a team of Civil Liberties Committee (CLC) functionaries who had constituted a fact-finding team were stopped from going to the area in the second week of September; they were detained in several places of Bhadrachalam division,” the statement said.

HRF has also called upon the State and Central governments to stop viewing and treating the Maoist movement as if it were nothing more than an outbreak of criminality. While the Maoist movement uses violence, sometimes considerably, to further its objective, it is essentially a political movement thatneeds to be addressed politically, as per the statement signed by the Telangana State general secretary S. Thirupathaiah and Telangana & Andhra Pradesh Coordination Committee member V. S. Krishna.