HYDERABAD: Mailaram Yadagiri, driver (Homeguard), who drove the vehicle TS 09PB 4760 transporting the police party and the four accused from the guest house at Mirjaguda near Shankarpally to Chatanpally, deposed before the judicial commission set up by the Supreme Court to look into the ‘encounter’ deaths of the accused on December 6, 2019, for the second day on Thursday.
Yadagiri said that after the incident when he was present at the spot with the vehicle, no police officer asked him to shift the injured personnel to hospital. He also stated that nobody examined him or the vehicle. Yadagiri told the commission he started from Ravi Guest House at 3.30 am and reached Chatanpally at around 5.45 am.
But in his statement to NHRC, Yadagiri stated that he started from the guest house at 3 am, reached Chatanpally at 4.40 am and that after reaching the spot, CI Narsimha Reddy asked the police party and the accused to wait for one hour in the bus. They all deboarded the bus at 5.30 am, he had informed the NHRC.
When the counsel for the commission pointed out the difference in the two statements, he said that he does not remember what he had told the NHRC. Yadagiri also stated that he parked the bus on the service road near the scene of the incident and slept off, but woke up at 6.30-7 am, when an ambulance came to the spot.
However, his affidavit stated that at about 6 am, he heard firing from the direction in which the police party had gone and in the statement to the NHRC, he had said that 25 minutes after reaching the spot, he heard gun shots for five minutes. When these differences were pointed out, he said: “I did not say so to the NHRC. Though I heard some sounds, I can’t say for sure if it was a firing or if the sound of a tyre bursting.”