Semmaram Encounter Killings Fact Finding Report2

Tamil Research Institution (TRI)
men go to Kerala and Karnataka for work. Then the policemen said that Andhra Police had
shot dead 20 persons who were cutting Red Sanders in Andhra and that they would bring
the photos of the persons. I waited for the policemen in Nambiyapattu. Then the DSP and
about 8 policemen came. When I looked at the photos that they brought I saw that the men
lying down in the photos were black as if they had been charred. There were injuries too on
the bodies of some of them. We took the policemen to Melakuppachanur. There Rajendran
was identified first. Then the other 4 persons’ bodies too were identified one after another.
The whole village was engulfed by grief. The cries of elders and children were unbearable to
listen to. Wails echoed across the whole of Nambiyampattu Panchayat.
Then the next day 08.04.2015 at about 4.00 p.m. 2 persons each from the families of the
deceased were asked to come with Ration Cards and Voter Identification Cards to
Jamunamarathu Police Station. From there the President of the Panchayat Mr. Chellan, the
Chairman and I took the letters that the policemen gave us and went to Tirupathi Govt.
Hospital at about 10.00 p.m. More than a thousand police personnel and reporters were
standing there. We said to the policemen who were standing there that we wanted to see the
bodies. But they denied us permission. Then the Govt. officials got copies of the Ration Card
and Voter Identification Card from the persons who had come to receive the bodies and
gave them copies of the Death Certificates and the First Information Reports.
After that at about 11.00 PM, they called relatives of the deceased one by one to show
the bodies. The persons who went into the post-mortem room came out and told us that
post-mortem had already been performed on the bodies and that the bodies were all
bundled up in such a way that only the face was visible. After that they sent the bodies of the
deceased to their homes in Tamil Nadu at the rate of two each in an ambulance.
The next morning at about 2.00 AM the bodies reached the village. It was heartbreaking
to see the whole village wailing all at once on seeing the bodies. Then we returned home
after asking them to do whatever they wanted to do as per rituals of the village. Some
persons seem to have removed the covering on the bodies and seen them. They said that
there were cuts on the arms, legs and the sexual organ. They also said that the post-mortem
on Chinnasamy’s body seemed to have been done when it was in a bent-over position itself.
Later arrangements were done to bury the bodies at the burial ground in
Melakuppachanur at about 3.00 PM. The rituals that the villagers perform for each body
would take about one hour. Since there were four bodies and there weren’t enough people
to take all the bodies at once, it was 6.00 PM when the rituals for all the 4 bodies were
completed.
After that many politicians came and made enquiries. They left after words of
consolation. In these circumstances, the Govt. has given Rs.3,00,000/-, Jayalalithaa has
given Rs.2,00,000/-, Karunanidhi has given Rs.1,00,000/- and Vijaykanth has given
Rs.50,000/- to the families of the deceased. Yet the village is still engulfed in grief. The
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