CBI begins probe in 2015 Jharkhand encounter

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a case in the killing of 12 people, including five minors, in an encounter in Jharkhand’s Palamu district in June 2015. The people were termed as Maoists by police.
The Jharkhand high court had last month asked the CBI to probe the killings.
A petition filed by Jawahar Yadav in the high court stated that in June 2015, his son and some other relatives were sleeping on the roof of the house when about 10pm, some men on motorcycles barged into the placeand forcibly took them away.On June 10, he learnt that his son Uday, relative Neeraj Yadav and 10 others were killed by a banned organization referred to as Jharkhand Jan Mukti Parishad.
He said that police and CRPF termed the incident as an encounter, although his son and Neeraj Yadav were never associated with any Maoist activities.
The police had claimed in its FIR that Maoists travelling in vehicles had fired at cops and a CRPF’s CoBRA team to which they retaliated. The cops had recovered rifles and carbines from the alleged Maoists.
The National Human Rights Commission had also visited Jharkhand in February to conduct an enquiry in the case.
The police had claimed that there were intelligence inputs about movement of Naxal leader Anurag Jee along with other cadres in the area after which an operation was planned by the cops and CoBRA.
The operation came under the scanner after some senior police officers – then DIG Hemant Toppo of Palamu district and then officer incharge of Sadar police station, Harish Chand Patnaik, claimed that such an encounter “never happened”.
While ordering a CBI probe, the Jharkhand high Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay had stated, “The photographs, which have been produced and also brought on record, do create a doubt on the facts placed by the police regarding the encounter. It is indeed surprising that all of 12 bodies were kept in a line as if somebody had brought the dead bodies from some other place and arranged it in a queue”.
“This case is one of the most highlighted and controversial cases in the state of Jharkhand. The public confidence has been shaken and eroded on the consequential ramifications of the so called encounter,” Justice Mukhopadhyay said as he quoted the proverbial expression “Ceaser’s wife must be above suspicion.”