Supreme Court appointed VS Sirpurkar Commission probed the Disha encounter case.
(Photo: Erum Gour\The Quint)
The petitioners appearing before the Supreme Court in the 'Disha Encounter case,' welcomed the apex court-appointed commission's report that said on Friday, 20 May, that the Telangana Police had killed four suspects detained in gang rape and murder of a young veterinarian in 2019.
The Inquiry Commission, which was appointed in 2019, recommended that the police personnel who were part of the extrajudicial killing should be "tried for murder."
In a statement by the activists from the Telangana Women and Transgender Organisations Joint Action Committee (WT-JAC Telangana), it was said that criminal action must be initiated against the 10 police officers who are guilty of murder of the four suspects, three of whom were juveniles at that time.
“The Commission’s report exposes a series of violations of procedures of arrest, remand, investigation, the worst of them being the wilful side-lining of the fact that three of the suspects were minors as per their school records," the statement read.
What Is the 2019 Disha Encounter Case?
On 27 November 2019, a 26-year-old veterinarian, who was later named as Disha, was gang-raped and murdered near a toll plaza in Telangana's Shamshabad area. Her charred body was found the next day.
In 2019, the Supreme Court appointed Justice VS Sirpurkar Commission to inquire into the case, which was widely derided as a fake encounter.
The activists in their statement have “demanded that a First Information Report (FIR) be registered immediately against all the policemen specifically named and indicted by the Commission” and they must be “arrested.”
Further, they have also requested the Telangana High Court to “prosecute the 10 policemen on fast-track to fix accountability,” which would also include “ascribing command responsibility of senior-most officers.”
The petitioners added that the report should have also named the senior-most police officials who were in-charge of the investigation, encounter and cover-up of evidence.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)