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.
C Chennakesavulu, Jollu Shiva, Jollu Naveen, and Mohammed Arif were accused of raping and killing her. On 6 December 2019, the four were killed at Chattanpally, near Hyderabad, in an ‘encounter’ with the police. They were accused of having allegedly shot at 10 police officers and fleeing from the spot.
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.”
“We demand that the state government take all necessary measures to safeguard rights of women through due process of law. We strongly condemn that in the name of ‘ensuring safety and freedom for women,’ the police and state are creating lawlessness and circumventing the rule of law, by perorating to extra-judicial killings of accused, which can never bring justice to the wronged/survivors of violence and their families,” the statement read.
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.
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