Telangana Police on Friday, 6 December, said that the "law has done its duty" after all four accused in the rape and murder of a woman veterinarian in Hyderabad were killed in an encounter with the police.
Briefing the media, Cyberabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar said the police personnel resorted to “retaliatory firing” after two of the accused opened fire after snatching weapons from them.
The police warned them and asked them to surrender but they continued to fire. “In retaliation, we opened fire and the four accused were killed,” he said.
How the Encounter Unfolded
Detailing the events leading to the exchange of fire, Sajjanar said the police team comprising ten police officials took the accused to the location based on their “confession” to recover a cellphone and “other objects,” according to PTI.
"... all the four accused got together, they started attacking the police party with stones, sticks, and other material. They also snatched away weapons from our two officers and started firing," he said.
“Even though our officers maintained restraint and asked them to surrender, they continued to fire. Our people retaliated and the four accused got killed,” he said, adding that after examination all the four bodies were found with bullet injuries.
Prime accused Arif attacked the police party followed by another accused, Chennakeshavulu, Sajjanar said.
In the cross-firing, a police sub-inspector and a constable suffered head injuries among others. Sajjanar said the policemen are undergoing treatment at a local hospital and that they have no bullet injuries.
According to the medical bulletin, one of the injured policemen suffered “abrasions over frontal region of the head,” while the other had a "blunt injury to left hand and shoulder.”
Both the patients are “neurologically and hemodynamically stable,” it added.
The Investigation
Detailing the investigation, Sajjanar said ten teams were formed to crack the case and that they collected a lot of scientific evidence.
Basing on their confession, the four accused were brought to the scene of the crime on Friday morning to recover the material objects – cellphone, power bank and watch, he said.
"In the last four days we have done DNA profiling of the victim and also the accused. We collected a lot of scientific evidence to prove the crime against the four accused," Sajjanar said.
The Commissioner said the police suspected the four accused may be involved in similar such offences.
"We are collecting data from Telangana, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh about burnt bodies of women and also of cases pertaining to missing women. Once the data comes we will analyse it about their involvement," he said.
Talking about the criticism and the NHRC notice, Sajjanar said "Law has done its duty and that's what I can say. We will tell them about the investigation. We will answer and send the report to the government and the NHRC. They were killed in the exchange of fire."
Asked why the four accused were taken to the scene of offence (where the body was found burnt) in early hours, the Commissioner said they were facing lot of threats and hence were taken there early in the morning.
(With inputs from PTI)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)