Bodies of Hyderabad rape accused moved yet again

Naveen S Garewal
Tribune News Service
Hyderabad, December 10

There is no end in sight to uncertainty and grief for the families of the gang-rape accused and alleged murderers of a veterinary doctor as the bodies of the four who were killed in an encounter with the police on December 6 are yet to be handed over to the families for their last rites. 

The bodies were today moved from Mahabubnagar to Gandhi Hospital here as the Telangana High Court has directed to preserve the bodies till December 13.

Hospital sources confirmed that the bodies that are fast decomposing were brought and have been kept in the Gandhi Hospital mortuary. The families of the deceased were expecting to get the bodies for the last rites on December 7, but legal hiccups following two petitions in the High Court demanding a judicial probe and court-monitored investigation have forbidden authorities to hand over the bodies to the families in case these needed to be examined again to rule out allegations of “extrajudicial killings”.

The bodies have already been subjected to two autopsies, the first by the forensic experts at the Mahabubnagar District hospital and the second by a team of experts from the National Human Right Commission (NHRC) that was sent to probe the encounter after the NHRC took a Suo Moto notice of the killing and allegations of a “false police encounter” by the Telangana police.

After the veterinary doctor was gang-raped and her body set on fire after murdering her, the four accused were arrested on November 29 following trails left behind in the form number plate detection from the truck parked in the area where the crime took place. The four were gunned down by police on December 6 at Chattanpalli about 50 km from here when they were taken to the scene of the crime to recover her phone, wristwatch and others belongings and to reconstruct the crime scene. The police claimed they were attacked and the four got killed in retaliatory action.

Meanwhile, parents of two of the four accused have claimed that the accused were minors. They told the team of the NHRC that they were killed in a “fake police encounter” and thus denied the right of a fair trial. Only one of the accused Mohammad Areef told his mother that he was in trouble because a girl came under his truck and died, while the other three according to their families did not mention anything and behaved very normally. They told this to the NHRC team, which could draw its inference from it.

Mother of J. Naveen said her son was born in 2002 and had dropped out of school a few years ago, while J. Shiva’s father, J Rajanna said his son was born on August 15, 2002, and presented a certificate from Gudigandla Government School in support of his claim. Both the minor accused worked as truck cleaners with the other two accused truck drivers Areef and Chennakeshavulu.

As the euphoria over the killing of rape and murder accused, providing “instant justice”, settles , more questions are being raised over the genuineness of the four accused being the actual culprits behind the rape and murder of the veterinary doctor.

Meanwhile, an organisation called the Civil Rights Commission filed another petition in the Telangana High Court seeking the inclusion of nine police officers, including CP Sajjanar, as the accused in the “fake encounter”. The bodies of the accused were requested to be handed over to the family members. The court, hearing the petition said that all the appeals related to the case would be heard on Thursday.