The Telangana Forum for Justice (TFJ) has asked the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments to stop encounters with immediate effect and to make public the names of police personnel involved.
The TFJ, which comprises representatives of different political and civil rights organisations, called for institution of reforms in police administration and to stop victimisation and illegal detention of Muslim youth in Telangana. It further sought a judicial inquiry into the Alair encounter. The SIT probe was prone to internal bias of the police force and therefore not adequate to the scale of personal tragedy and police excess.
“Only the sternest action will ensure that the newly-formed States do not degenerate into police controlled satrapies where democratic rights are trampled upon with impunity,” said speakers at a dharna camp organised at Indira Park here on Saturday.
Prof. Rama Melkote, V.S. Krishna (Human Rights Forum), Amjadullah Khan (MBT), Kodandaram (TJAC), Abdul Raheem Qureshi (United Muslim Forum), Bhupal (CPIM), Hamid Mohd Khan (Movement for Peace and Justice), Lateef Mohd Khan (CLMC) and senior advocate, Bojja Tarakam, were among those who spoke.
In both the States, they said, police predictably claimed firing in self defence. But the newspaper pictures of Muslim undertrials shackled to their seats and the woodcutters lying among red sander logs pointed to the police taking law into their hands. The NHRC had taken cognizance of both the encounters and ordered investigations.
The speakers wanted the AP and Telangana governments to take note that the images of the shackled bodies of Muslim undertrials and the Dalit labourers would haunt public memory.
If justice was not done, they would brand our society intractably.