The Supreme court on Wednesday, while hearing the Public Interest Litigation filed to demand an independent probe into the police encounter on the four accused detained with the connection to gang-raping and murdering a female Hyderabad doctor last month, has proposed to constitute an independent inquiry headed by the former Apex court Justice.

By postponing the hearing for Thursday, the apex court bench headed by the Chief Justice of India Sharad Arvind Bobde had directed the state government of Telangana and the other parties in the petition to finalize the name of the retired Supreme court Justice under whom the probe would be conducted with the direct monitoring from the Apex court.

The Public Interest Litigation was filed by advocate G S Mani in which he stated that the alleged encounter was carried out with the motive of diverting the attention of the public from the inabilities of the police department to protect the women from such heinous crimes. Through his petition, he sought the directive from the Supreme court to constitute a CBI investigation or to install a special investigation to probe the killings and to interrogate V.C. Sajjanar, the police commissioner of Cyberabad who played a central role in the encounter and who is also the respondent in the petition.

The directive from the Supreme court to form an independent probe on the encounter comes days after the National Human Rights Commission had set up a special team to inquire about the case. On Tuesday, police commissioner Sajjanar had appeared before the seven-member panel of the Human Rights Commission to table the report on the encounter. The Special team of the Human Rights body had examined the encounter spot, the bodies of the four accused that were preserved as per the directive of Telangana High court and the team had met the family of the deceased woman, who was brutally raped, murdered and set ablaze by the four men.

On December 6th, 2019 Hyderabad police department had encountered and shot dead the four accused of the case after they were reportedly attempted to evade the investigations and the bodies of the accused would be preserved till December 13th in the state-run Gandhi hospital in Hyderabad. On November 27th, a 26-year-old female Hyderabad Veterinary doctor was reportedly gang-raped and brutally murdered by these four accused who belong to Narayanpet district. Following the crime, they had allegedly carried the body and set ablaze at Chatanpally village, a few kilometers away from the place where she was killed.

The autopsy report had revealed that no bullets have been found in the bodies of the accused. In their report, the doctors said that the bullets had penetrated out from the bodies. The reports say that these bullets are yet to be collected from the encounter spot and it remains unclear on whose gun they were shot dead.

Also read: https://thenewstuff.in/hyd-police-encounter-case-high-court-directs-preserve-bodies