In February 2012, 5 persons, suspected to be bank robbers, were killed in a shootout in Velachery
Giving a clean chit to the city police in the Velachery
encounter case, the Madras High Court on Friday dismissed a batch of
petitions that sought the registration of a case of murder against the
police personnel involved.
The petition also sought the transfer of the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
On
February 23, 2012, five persons, suspected to be bank robbers, were
killed by the city police in a shootout in Velachery. Immediately after
the incident, public interest litigation petitions were filed in the
High Court by activists including P. Pugalenthi, director, Prisoners
Rights Forum. They alleged the police did not want to investigate the
bank robberies and were bent on killing the suspects.
A
division bench comprising Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice Aruna
Jagadeesan rejected the petitions and said they were based on hearsay.
The petitioners had no personal knowledge or substantive proof on the
matter, the Bench said.
Contending it was a clear
case of murder committed by police officers, the petitioners alleged
that instead of resorting to legal methods of apprehending the accused
and bringing them to trial before the court, the police resorted to
elimination of the suspects in a fake encounter. Hence, the police
officers involved should be booked for murder, they said.
The
counsel for the police vehemently argued that police personnel were
also human beings and if they opened fire to defend themselves, it could
not be brought under the definition of murder.
Rejecting
the contentions of the petitioners, the Bench said, “The magistrate
report nowhere suggested anything to doubt the veracity of the version
of the police. Likewise, another report submitted by the deputy
superintendent of police, Police Research Centre, Crime Branch CID, held
that the death of the five armed gangsters occurred when they attempted
to kill the police personnel, who were taking all efforts to arrest
them. The police returned fire in order to protect the lives of the
public at large and their own lives.”
The judges said
the petitioners were in no way connected with the deceased persons and
they had no other material, except media reports, to say the police
concocted a story after killing the accused.
Stating
that the State government had swiftly transferred the investigation to
the Crime Branch-CID, the Bench dismissed another plea for a CBI probe.
“The
petitioners are completely third parties to the incident. They cannot
be permitted to poke their nose into the investigation under the garb of
public interest litigation, that too without any material and knowledge
about the same, except hearsay evidence and media reports”, said the
Bench.
Source: http://to.ly/mgFO
