When the fake encounter in Kandhamal district killing five tribals has rocked the State, fingers are pointed to the closure of a case by the NHRC involving deaths of Madhav Singh Thakur and Ramesh Sahu, who were shot at by security personnel in 2010.
After Supreme Court lawyer and rights activist Radhakanta Tripathy filed case in the NHRC in this regard, the NHRC had issued show cause. In his petition, Tripathy had mentioned Madhav Singh Thakur (37) and Ramesh Sahu (27) were shot dead by the police and CRPF on December 27, 2010. The incident took place in Gandhamardhan forest area near MahadevJharan in Bargarh.
The petitioner had sought independent probe of the case and heavy compensation to the family members.
The police claimed that they had received information about a group of 60-70 Maoists camping in the forest area and so it had gone there. It also claimed that an encounter
had taken place between the Maoists and the security forces.
The NHRC, however, felt that the story given by the police was not credible and, therefore, a show cause notice u/s 18 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 was issued to the Government of Odisha requiring it to explain why the Commission should not recommend monetary relief for the next of kin of the two deceased persons.
While issuing the show cause notice, the Commission observed that there was not an iota of evidence to indicate the Maoist links of Madhav Singh Thakur and Ramesh Sahu.
In response to the notice, the Government of Odisha had brought to the notice of the Commission that the involvement and association of the two
diseased with CPI (Maoist) on
several occasions was documented and reflected in Station Diary entries and weekly confidential diaries of Paikmal Police Station.
It was also pointed out by the State Government that deceased Madhav Singh Thakur was badly reputed in the village and was involved in Paikmal Police Station case No.164 of 2010.
It may be noted that some residents of village Borasambar deposed before the Magistrate that Madhav Singh Thakur and Ramesh Sahu had come to the village on a motorcycle on the date of incident and after leaving the motorcycle in the village, they had gone to the forest area on foot.