Activists demand CBI probe

CHENNAI: A fact-finding team on Monday demanded a CBI enquiry into the ‘encounter’ killing of five suspected bank robbers at Velachery on February 23, alleging that an investigation by the CB-CID, which comprised police officers from the state, would not help in unravelling the ‘real truth’ behind the incident.Releasing its interim report, the 10-member team, comprising Prof Marx of People’s Union of Democratic Rights, Kalyani, Sukumaran, Rajini and Madhumita Dutta, among others, told reporters that discrepancies in the police claims had given rise to suspicion whether innocent persons were killed in the encounter. Referring to a photograph in a newspaper, showing one of the dead men in shoes, they asked: “If the men were shot inside the house, why is one of them wearing footwear?”“Under NHRC guidelines on encounters, a case of murder must be registered against 14 police personnel, including CoP JK Tripathy, additional commissioner (L&O) P Thamarai Kannan, JCP (South) K P Shanmugharajeswaran and DCP (Adyar) R Sudhakar,” the activists said.Quoting a media report, they also claimed that the encounter seemed to have triggered hostility towards the north Indian community in the city. The team alleged that the victims, who could have been labourers, appeared to have been killed in a “fake encounter’.