RAIPUR: The tribals accompanied by human rights activists staged a dharna at the Basaguda police station in south Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district after raising their demand to lodge an FIR against the former chief minister Raman Singh and the officials of the state police and the CRPF in the “fake” encounter.
The one-man commission, headed by former Madhya Pradesh high court judge Justice V K Agrawal, that probed the Sarkeguda encounter in its findings had indicted security forces saying there was no proof of villagers firing on the troopers nor they were Maoist cadres.
The Commission report pointed out that the police investigation into this incident is manipulated and dishonest and that there is no evidence to show any of the deceased or injured villagers was a Naxalite. Seventeen people including seven minors were killed in an “encounter” during the intervening night of June 28-29 in 2012 at Sarkeguda in Bijapur district.
Around 60 tribals, mostly women, and the rights activists Himanshu Kumar, Soni Sori and others approached Basaguda police thana for getting the case registered.
“Over 200 security personnel are involved in the encounter, which has been cited as fake by the judicial commission. Now why the police trying to save the culprits. We will not move from the police station till an FIR is registered,” the human rights activist Himanshu Kumar stated.
The sub-divisional officer of police at Basaguda Vinod Minj declined to register any FIR though he agreed to receive their complaint. According to him the police need to await orders from the state government with regards to the commission’s report.
“The law has empowered the police to register the case. The government will not be always telling what needs to done or not,” Kumar retorted.
Meanwhile, the ex-CM Singh felt that there shouldn't be any politics into it. “The state government should initiate action on the basis of the recommendations given by the judicial inquiry commission”, he said.