Chittoor continues to make headlines, and
rightly. The dead-bodies are asking for their due if we believe in such things.
Once trophies for police, now the bodies
are part of the investigation and as the time is getting up, officials in the
operation are feeling the heat.
A report said victim families have
requested for 'no last rites' for bodies until the investigation is complete.
As more and more truth is coming out, a
report today said 12 out of 20 killed are from Tamil Nadu and its chief
minister has already written to his counterpart in Andhra Pradesh for a
'credible probe'.
So, all from Tamil Nadu to 12 from Tamil
Nadu would change anything?
No, because the facts increasingly say that
it was a stage-managed encounter. People, preferably labourers or small time
workers, were killed in cold blood - people with backgrounds and families that
they thought could not raise voices.
But the bodies with logs are crying foul of
the crime scenes.
Reports said bodies were decomposed.
Reports said logs were with white paint having code-word inscribed on them
suggesting involvement of some government stockpile. Also the logs were not
fresh.
Police have not been able to explain facial
shots and burn marks on some of the bodies, apart from routine defence. Then
Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC) today paraded a 'survivor' of
the 'alleged stage-managed' encounter. He has been kept somewhere to will be
produced before the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) as the APCLC said.
Police or RSASTF, with local police and
forest officials, killed 20 in self-defence and none of the policemen or
officials involved were injured. An encounter with hundreds of red-sandalwood smugglers,
at multiple locations, 10 Kms away from human dwellings, deep in Seshachalam
forests (with a range notorious for red sandalwood smuggling), would certainly
involve, if not casualties, then at least injuries to the police and party
involved, even if we accept the RSASTF DIG's remark that 'his force was
superiorly trained'.
But, not just the police, even the forest
officials and the local police escaped unharmed, without the bruise, though
they had a full-throttle brush with the law and order situation that was
expected to leave multiple casualties and injuries.
Though Andhra Pradesh chief minister who is
ally of the BJP led National Democratic Alliance and has briefed the Union Home
Minister about the whole incident, stoically defends the encounter as genuine
while the whole Tamil Nadu is erupting in protests. A TN led seizure of
Chittoor is proposed for tomorrow.
And even the Andhra Pradesh is not silent. Rights
groups and opposition politicians are making the voices that are being heard.
Chittoor encounter is rightly making for
the headlines and is expected to rock the nation more in the coming days with
more facts emerging, with more reports saying the encounter stage-managed.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
