Cauvery Basin2
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Tamil Research Institution (TRI)<br />
V. Were these killings unpremeditated or were they planned murders? It is<br />
impossible to give the Andhra police the benefit of the doubt, and to say that only<br />
some members of the Task Force over-reacted to an attack on them with sticks and<br />
stones, using lethal and disproportionate force in retaliation, in which 20 lives were<br />
tragically lost. The reports that the fact finding team received, particularly from the<br />
three men who were companions of 12 of the men who were killed, and narrowly<br />
escaped their fate, points to something far more sinister and grave, the abduction,<br />
torture and murder by the Task Force of 20 completely innocent men, all of them<br />
desperately poor migrant workers from Tamil Nadu, 13 of whom were also from the<br />
Scheduled Tribes.<br />
Also, it is categorically clear from the testimony of Ilangovan and the APRS-STF<br />
personnel as well as the statements by the family members of the deceased victims<br />
that all 20 people were tortured and executed in a planned operation. Relying on the<br />
article in the magazine ‘Nakeeran’, on the revelations made by the APRS-STF<br />
personnel, we are forced to find truth in the version put forth that the orders of<br />
execution were passed by none other than the Chief Minister of AP to the DGP and<br />
then to DIG Dr. M. Kanta Rao who then ordered his men to follow suit. Hence,<br />
following the principle of command and responsibility, the Chief Minister, the DGP<br />
and the DIG will be jointly and severally criminally responsible for commissioning the<br />
extra judicial killing of the 20 poor villagers hailing from Tamilnadu if this is<br />
independently investigated.<br />
VI.<br />
Correlating the statements of the three witnesses, the following conclusions can<br />
be drawn –<br />
i) 11 innocent men, travelling in search of work, who had committed no crime, were<br />
“abducted” and taken into ‘police custody’ by armed and unarmed policemen,<br />
who stopped and boarded public transport in Andhra Pradesh, or picked them up<br />
from public places near Tirupati on the night of the 6 th April, without being<br />
questioned or prevented from doing so and totally contrary to the provisions of<br />
arrest as under sections 41A, 41B, 41C, 41D, 53, 60 and 60A of the Criminal<br />
Procedure Code;<br />
ii)<br />
iii)<br />
www.tamilri.com<br />
though all these armed men were not in police uniform, and cannot be identified<br />
as such, the fact finding team presumes that armed gangsters cannot roam<br />
around in Andhra cities, or carry out abductions so brazenly. Hence the<br />
conclusion that these were arrests;<br />
the fact finding team has seen for itself that reinforcements sent to bolster the<br />
Task Force unit which was blocking its entry to the forest on the 14 th April arrived<br />
in mufti, but carrying rifles; this appears to be standard practice for the APRS-<br />
STF;<br />
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