Maoist Yellappa killed in cold blood, rights groups allege

25 September, 2012

Calling it a 'cold blooded murder', a fact-finding committee constituted by various human rights groups to go into the details of the encounter killing of 'Maoist' Yellappa @Dinakaran in Karnataka, alleged that he was killed by anti-Naxalite Force (ANF) personnel.

THE COMBING operations are being conducted by the police with an intention to eliminate the naxalites/ Maoists, it alleged. The encounter took place within the limits of Kadaba police station of South Canara District. Initially, versions of encounter were released stating that a person was injured and later died of bullet injuries.

“To locate the deceased Maoist, it took more than 5 days. In this context it was felt that a fact-finding committee would go into the details of the occurrence of the incident of the encounter to arrive at true facts,” a press release informed.

The team alleged that in this incident, the police personnel were armed with highly sophisticated weapons while the other party i.e., the so called Maoists/ Naxalites were armed with local weapons. Further, admittedly it was 7: 45 p.m. and it was a dark night. The Naxalites were found under light in the tents while the police party was hiding behind the bushes in the dark. This makes it apparently evident that the first shot could have been fired from the police side on seeing the Naxalites under light. There was no possibility of the Naxalites firing at someone hiding in dark. This makes the police version of exchange of fire from both sides a blatant lie.

“Further, 15 to 20 bullet injuries on the deceased clearly speak of the intention to kill and indiscriminate firing on the side of the police. Though there are 15 to 20 bullet injuries on the body, no single bullet was found in the dead body that means, all the bullets fired on the deceased exited the body. It clinches the issue that the deceased was fired at from a close range,” the press release added.

At the outset, the team concluded that the ANF personnel are going on a killing spree in the name of combing operations and not intending to nab or take into custody the naxalites alive and the story of killing Maoist Yellappa @ Dinakar in an encounter is a cold blooded murder.

They demanded that a murder case u/s. 302 of IPC be registered against the ANF team led by Dy. Commandant AH Shankaran. They also demanded a judicial enquiry into the encounter killing of Yellappa, by a sitting judge of the High Court and the ANF team should be kept under suspension, with immediate effect. They further demanded to stop forthwith the combing operation which is used as camouflage to kill and not to nab the naxalites.

The fact finding committee consisted of members of different civil rights organizations from Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Mr. C.Sriram of Peoples Democratic Forum, Adv. P.A. Pouran, PUCL, Kerala, Adv. R. Murugesan and S.Gopal of CPCL (Centre for Protection of Civil Liberties) Tamil Nadu, Adv. Kranthi Chaitanya, APCLC(Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee) participated in the team. The team was co-ordinated by Mr. P.B. D’Sa of PUCL, Mangalore.