The Madras High Court on Tuesday ordered notice to the Tamil Nadu government on a writ petition seeking registration of a case of murder against the police personnel involved in the “killing” of five persons, suspected to be bank robbers, in an alleged encounter at Velachery in Chennai last week and transfer of the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
A Division Bench, comprising Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice N. Kirubakaran, ordered notice of motion and posted the case for further hearing on March 6, 2012.
In the public interest litigation petition, P. Pugalenthi, Director, Prisoners Rights Forum, alleged that the police never wanted to investigate the bank robberies and were bent upon killing the suspects. “Instead of investigating a crime of robbery in the manner known to law, the respondent-police personnel entered a thickly populated residential locality and killed five youngsters who were staying in a single-bedroom house which was allegedly locked from within.”
