Hyderabad/Chennai: As doubts cropped up over the gunning down of 20 woodcutters from Tamil Nadu, the Andhra Pradesh Police on Friday faced tough questions from the Hyderabad High Court as to why a case of murder was not filed in the killings.
In a related development, the Madras High Court refused to order a second postmortem on the bodies of six victims from Thiruvannamalai district which have been asked to be preserved till April 17.
Political sparring continued on either side of the border with parties in Tamil Nadu demanding an inquiry and holding protests while Andhra Pradesh maintained that the state police operation was one of "smugglers versus law" and asked parties not to act under political compulsions.
Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC) General Secretary C Chandrasekhar, in a writ petition filed in the Hyderabad High Court earlier, had alleged that it was a case of "murder" and the victims were poor labourers from Tamil Nadu.
"It was a cold-blooded murder of 20 poor labourers from Tamil Nadu," alleged the petitioner who sought directions for registration of an FIR under IPC Section 302 (murder) against the policemen involved in the operation besides seeking a CBI probe.
The petitioner's counsel V Raghunath said the High Court, after going through the two FIRs, felt unhappy and sought to know from the government whether or not a case of unnatural death was registered and asked how could police file a case against the dead persons.
The Court asked who is the Investigating Officer. When it was informed that the local police are investigating, the court said it is a serious issue as two states (AP and Tamil Nadu) are involved.
"How could local police conduct investigation?" the court asked, according to Raghunath.
Additional Advocate General (AAG) D Srinivas said the court sought to know if AP police registered a case of unatural death in the case.
He submitted before the court that a magisterial inquiry is underway into the April 7 operation as per guidelines of the Supreme Court.
The AAG earlier filed a report of police before the court containing the details of 2 FIRs and identification of the bodies, their post-mortem besides names of relatives to whom they were handed over.
The AAG then informed the court that National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued notices on the matter.
"NHRC is seized of the matter...Why should we look into that when there is initiation of NHRC proceedings," the court noted, according of AAG.
The HC further observed that when the matter is under investigation it did not wish to comment on whether it is "death or killings", the AAG said.
In Madras High Court, Justice M Sathyanarayanan refused to issue a direction for a second postmortem on the bodies of six people, saying it has no jurisdiction as its counterpart iN Hyderabad is already seized of the matter.
Sticking to its stand that the Chittoor firing incident was a mere "smugglers versus law" issue, the AP Government urged parties in Tamil Nadu to refrain from acting under political compulsions to satisfy their support base and rejected compensation demand.
Responding to strong reactions and protests in Tamil Nadu over the incident in which 20 people from that State were shot dead during an operation said to be against red sanders smugglers, AP Communication Advisor Parakala Prabhakar appealed to TN leaders not to view this as an issue between the two southern States.
"Political parties have their own compulsions and support base, which they have to satisfy. We would like political parties to view the whole incident as a smuggler versus law issue and not as a one state versus another state issue," Prabhakar told PTI.
Three branches of Andhra Bank in Chennai came under stone pelting by miscreants as protests continued for the fourth day across Tamil Nadu.
Demonstrations, attempts to block train and burning of effigies of AP Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu marked the protests by various organisations in different parts of the state seeking justice for the victims of the April 7 incident, police said.
Preventing MDMK chief Vaiko from undertaking his proposed protest in AP, Tamil Nadu police detained him and about 1,000 of his supporters while they were on their way to Chittoor.
Describing the incident as unprecedented and "a big human rights violation", DMK President M Karunanidhi called for a judicial enquiry and urged the Tamil Nadu government to take steps in this regard.
