Chittoor encounter: Seshachalam is first murder case on AP policemen

Hyderabad: This is the first case of murder being registered against police officers in AP.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar was dealing with a petition moved by Mr Chilaka Chandra Sekhar, general secretary of the Civil Liberties Committee, seeking a direction to book a case under Section 302 of IPC (Murder) against the police personnel involved in the encounter and to also order a CBI probe.

Additional advocate general of AP Dammalapati Srinivas submitted that the Chandragiri police had received a complaint from Ms Muniammal and had issued an FIR against the police personnel. He added that the government had also decided to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the case.

When the Bench sought to know the names of the SIT officials, the AAG replied that he had to ascertain the same from the government. The bench said it will monitor the case.

On Wednesday, Ms Muniammal, the complainant, appeared before the bench along with lawyers from Chennai and submitted that they had approached the Madras High Court seeking fresh post-mortem of six bodies including that of her husband. The body was preserved at the Thiruvannamalai Government Hospital in Tamil Nadu as per the order of the Madras HC.

The counsel for the complainant told the bench that as the matter was already seized by the Hyderabad High Court in the PIL by the Civil Liberties Committee , the Madras High Court had not passed an order for fresh post-mortem of the bodies and urged the bench to order the same.

The bench directed the AP government to place the inquest and post-mortem reports of the deceased within 24 hours before the court.