State Convenor of Human Rights Forum (HRF) V.S. Krishna termed the recent encounter, wherein 30 Maoists were killed by AP Greyhounds in a joint operation with the Odisha Police, as one-sided one.
Talking to The Hindu after a fact-finding visit to Ramgarh or Ramaguda village in the cut-off area of the Andhra-Odisha Border here on Saturday, he said the firing was unilateral and the Maoists did not have an opportunity to fire back.
“They [Greyhounds] were in a dominating position and outnumbered the Maoists on all fronts such as fire power, vantage point and men, and they could have easily asked them [Maoists] to surrender or arrested them. But they resorted to firing and they chased and hunted them down,” he said.
According to Mr. Krishna, the police had declared about 30 Maoists dead and had identified about 16 to 17 of them. The Maoists had identified about 27, which leaves the question, who the other three were.
Missing persons
“As per our fact finding, there were about 16 to 18 villagers and the unidentified could be a few of them. Till date, about 13 villagers are missing from the villages of Dakapadar, Bachilipadar and Kajuriguda. We demand an investigation in this case.”
This apart, we also demand that the encounter, as termed by the police, should not be written off on the face of the statement given by the police, but an independent enquiry be conducted by the CBI or a court monitored committee which should comprise officers from the judiciary and the police with impeccable record.
