Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee vice-president Md. Ali Shabbir has described the constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the Alair encounter as an ‘eyewash’.
Reiterating the party’s demand for a CBI probe into the encounter wherein five under trials were killed in police firing, Mr. Shabbir Ali said it was shocking that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who claimed to be minority-friendly, had maintained questionable silence on the issue for five days and announced formation of SIT to probe into the matter.
“The Chief Minister is just trying to hush-up the matter by ordering a probe through the SIT. It is highly condemnable that Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao is making light of the killing of five Muslim youth in an ‘encounter’, especially at a time when doubts have been raised over the veracity of police claim,” he said.
“While the Congress strongly condemns all kinds of terrorism, it opposes ‘fake encounters’ and implication of Muslim youth in false cases,” he said.
In a related development, former Andhra Pradesh Khadi Board chairman G. Niranjan decried the Government’s move to constitute SIT. Stating that the SIT probe would demoralise police personnel, Mr. Niranjan such action would only give a fillip to terrorism. He charged the TRS Government with succumbing to pressure from the MIM and ordering a probe with an eye on the GHMC polls.