Sandalwood killings: NHRC asks for phone records of STF men involved

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The three-day ‘Open Hearing’ and ‘Camp Sitting’ of the NHRC on the matters of human rights violations related to the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana began at Hyderabad Wednesday at Dr. MCR HRD Institute. The NHRC’s order regarding mobile phone records may reveal the location of the STF personnel were involved in the alleged encounter in the face of allegations from the families of the woodcutters that they were picked up from buses and shot in cold blood.

On April 15, the Andhra Pradesh Government informed the High Court at Hyderabad that a murder case was registered against unknown police personnel in the alleged encounter on April 7 in which 20 red sanders woodcutters were shot dead by police. Additional Advocate General Dammalapati Srinivas informed a division bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengutra and Justive P V Sanjay Kumar that based on the complaint filed by the widow of a woodcutter, Muniammal, at the Chandragiri Police Station stating that her husband Sashi and others were daily wage labourers who were going to find work when a team of AP police took them away and shot them dead, and it was not an encounter as police claimed.

The FIR was registered under IPC sections of murder (302) and kidnapping (364) against unknown personnel of the Special Task Force which conducted the operation. Meanwhile, the High Court at Hyderabad adjourned to April 28 the hearing on a writ filed by father of alleged SIMI activist Vikaruddin Ahmed, who was killed in an alleged encounter in Nalgonda in Telangana on April 7, seeking filing of criminal cases against the personnel involved in the case.

Vikaruddin’s father Mohammed Ahmed filed a writ seeking CBI investigation and booking a murder case against the policemen who shot dead Vikaruddin and four others on April 7 when they allegedly tried to attack the police escort. The HC adjourned the case after Telangana Additional Advocate General Ramachandra Rao sought time to filed a counter affidavit. Mohammed Ahmed had on April 11 filed a complaint with Alair Police Station alleging that the police escort killed his son and four other undertrials in cold blood.