All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi has strongly condemned the killing of five undertrial prisoners by the escort police in an alleged encounter when they were being brought from Warangal central jail to a criminal court in Hyderabad. He demanded a judicial inquiry by a sitting High Court judge into the Tuesday’s encounter killings in Warangal district.
Asaduddin dubbed the encounter deaths as “extra-judicial retaliatory killings” by the State police in the wake of the killing of policemen by suspected SIMI terrorists at Suryapet in Nalgonda district last week. The police had gunned down two suspected terrorists in an encounter in Nalgonda district. The Suryapet incident was a terrorist act and everyone condemned it and expressed solidarity with the police.
“But the police seemed to be on a retaliatory killing spree by gunning down undertrial prisoners to avenge Suryapet incident. When the undertrial prisoners were facing terror charges, it was for the courts to decide. However, the police cannot take over the powers of judiciary and resort to extra-judicial killings”, he added.
Owaisi said there were reports that the undertrial prisoners were tortured and brutally killed in an alleged encounter. He also demanded that the State government should follow the guidelines of the Supreme Court and the National Human Rights Commission and book cases against the policemen in connection with the alleged encounter in Warangal, he demanded. (NSS)
