Leaving SIMI ‘encounter’ spot unguarded violated SC order: Lawyer in trial court

Sravani Sarkar

NewsBits.in

Bhopal: By leaving the SIMI ‘encounter’ spot near Khejdadev village on outskirts of Bhopal unguarded and open to people’s visit, Bhopal police has violated a 2014 order of Supreme Court on encounters that required immediate sealing of the spot.

Also several other points in this SC order, issued in the case of PUCL versus State of Maharashtra have been violated by Bhopal police and jail authorities, lawyer for slain SIMI operatives, Parvez Alam has told the Bhopal trial court.

As part of his petition, Alam put before the Bhopal Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) court on November 9 that almost all points in the 2014 order of SC including that regarding collection and seizure of guns and bullet casings from the spot by a judicial magistrate were violated.

The lawyer would be arguing upon these points before the court during the next hearing on the petition on November 17, he told NewsBits.in.

During the hearing of November 9, the CJM court admonished the Bhopal jail authorities for failing to inform the trial court (under whose custody the SIMI operatives were lodged in Bhopal Central jail) about the escape and encounter of the eight operatives.

The court was officially informed about the escape and encounter only on November 9, nine days after the incident. The CJM also said that since the government had ordered a judicial probe into the incident, it meant that government was also not sure whether it was really an escape followed by encounter. In such situation, not informing the court about the incident was a very serious matter.

The CJM Bhu Bhaskar Yadav expressed dissatisfaction at the replies of the district prosecution officers and put forth various questions put up by the SIMI lawyer for reply.

These questions include: When did the alleged escape and encounter happen? Was a judicial magistrate informed about the encounter immediately as was required under section 176 of CrPC? Was a magisterial inquiry started into the matter immediately as required? Was postmortem conducted and if yes was a magistrate informed about the postmortem and was present for the postmortem?

The DPO Rajendra Upadhayay asked for some time to be able to seek replies from authorities on these points, following which the hearing was deferred for November 17.

Lawyer Parvez Alam said that apart from the discrepancies mentioned above, the police left the encounter spot totally unguarded and many people visited it for next few days destroying all evidences like blood marks, shoe prints and others.

Also the casings from the spot were not collected and seized by a magistrate (to be counted separately and matched for guns of police and the operatives). Guns of police and those claimed to have been recovered form killed operatives were also not handed over to the magistrate for ballistics testing.

“I would present and argue upon all these points before the court during the next hearing,” he said.