Semmaram Encounter Killings Fact Finding Report2

Tamil Research Institution (TRI)
iii) At Kalasamangalam village in Tiruvannamalai district and met the family
members of Palani. Late Palani and his wife have a 42 days old child.
iv) At Vettagiri Palayam village in Tiruvannamalai district and met the family
members of Perumal, Mahendran, Moorthy, Munusamy, Sasikumar, Murugan.
Sasikumar’s wife Muniamal had gone to Hyderabad to file a petition in the Andhra
Pradesh High Court.
v) At Chitheri Hills in Dharmapuri District and met the family members of Hari
Krishnan, Venkatesh, Sivakumar, Arasanatham Lakshmanan, Velayudham,
Lakshamanan and Sivalingam.
Most of them deposed to the team that their respective deceased family members left homes
on either of 5 th or 6 th April located in Tiruvannamalai and Dharampuri districts. The family
members stated that they were going to Coimbatore, Chennai, Pondicherry, Kerala and
Karnataka for coolie work. Some of them also mentioned about the calls made and received
by them from their respective husbands or sons. Most of the victims’ families had no signs of
prosperity and have hand to mouth existence. Schemes like MGNAREGA are defunct for
almost a year. The only livelihood option available to the people in these villages was
therefore to move out for labour work either in nearby cities or coffee estates in Kerala and
Karnataka. Very rarely they referred to Karnataka and for them outside Tamilnadu was
always referred to as Kerala. The families of the deceased victims claimed that under no
stretch of imagination the victims can be involved in red sander smuggling or even red
sander woodcutting in the past. On several occasions, victims were joined by their
respective wives, children and brothers while setting out for contractual work. (Refer to
Annexure 7 for a detailed account of the village visit).
The fact finding team returned to Vellore around 8 PM and the two day mission formally
concluded.
5. OBSERVATIONS OF THE FACT FINDING TEAM
From an analysis of the reports in the media on the incident, it became clear that an
objective assessment could only be made by getting answers to several genuine questions
raised by several experts, journalists, lawyers, human rights activists and, judicial and quasijudicial
bodies. It is immensely and urgently important that an independent investigation is
undertaken. Despite 2 weeks of the alleged ‘encounter’, in our 68 years old democracy
claiming one of the best Constitutions among the modern nation-states, the killing of 20 poor
villagers is still awaiting an investigation and had to wait for the directions of the Andhra
Pradesh High Court to register an FIR. Despite the information received on April 12 at 2:15
PM regarding the same, the FIR was only registered after a delay of almost two days on
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