Coolies killed in Seshachalam on Chandrababu directions: People's Watch

The Special Task Force (STF) DIG Dr M Kanta Rao was in touch with the AP DGP on the midnight of 6 April for further orders on the fate of 20 labourers from Tamil Nadu. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu was in Chittoor district that night along with Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu. "It was on the instructions of Chandrababu Naidu that innocent laborers were killed in a cooked up encounter,” People’s Watch (Tamil Nadu) Executive Director Henri Tiphagne complained to the full commission.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) plans to send a fact finding team into Seshachalam forests on the foothills of Tirumala within a week to ascertain the veracity of the Andhra Pradesh government’s stand that the encounter in which 20 wood cutters from Tamil Nadu were killed is genuine.

Making the NHRC’s intentions amply clear to Vinay Ranjan Ray Additional DGP (Legal) and state government’s Chief Legal Advisor Mr. Naga Raju, the NHRC full bench chaired by Justice KG Balakrishanan directed the AP government to order a judicial enquiry into the incident.

The public hearing at the MCR HRD Institute by the NHRC became a virtual indictment of the AP government as the commission directed the AP government to record the statements of all the three laborers from Tamil Nadu who are stated to be eye witnesses under 164 CRPC before any judicial magistrate.