The Madras High Court on Thursday asked the authorities to preserve the bodies of six people from Tamil Nadu till Friday, who were killed in an “encounter” with the Special Task Force on Tuesday at Seshachalam Forest Range in Andhra
Pradesh. Justice M Sathyanarayanan asked the authorities to preserve the bodies at the District Headquarters Hospital in Thiruvannamalai, 170 km from Chennai.
The direction was in response to a petition filed by Muniammal of Polur, wife of Sasikumar, one of the victims who fell to the bullets of the Andhra Pradesh Police.
Muniammal pleaded with the court to order a re-post-mortem as her husband’s body had cut marks in addition to the injuries caused by bullets. Counsel for the petitioner K Balu submitted that chemicals had been sprayed on the body.
Justice Sathyanarayanan said if any order of post-mortem has to be passed, an FIR was a must and without it the same cannot be ordered. The
judge said that if the Tamil Nadu Government takes a decision on the FIR, the court would not stand in the way.
Advocate General Al Somayaji submitted that the Government has no objection and also said that if the court passes the order on post-mortem, it will be done immediately.
The judge said that the court cannot pass any orders as there was no FIR and that the incident had occurred outside the Jurisdiction of this court.
Earlier in the day, Thiruvannamalai witnessed some anxious moments as relatives of the two victims staged a protest by placing the dead bodies on the road and refusing to conduct the last rites. They demanded a fair probe into the shootout by the Andhra Pradesh Police.
Meanwhile, AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa on Thursday expressed her shock over the shootout. She also declared a solatium of Rs 2 lakh each to the families of the victims from the AIADMK fund.
Jayalalithaa said that she was pained to hear the news of the shootout and the high causalities. She also expressed doubt over the claims of the police that the shots were fired in self-defence. The AIADMK general secretary requested Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu to conduct an enquiry to bring out the truth and take proper action.
She said the photographs and video images from the spot where the shootout took place have given rise to doubts over the claims of the Andhra Pradesh Police. “We have to find out whether the Andhra Pradesh Police was justified in resorting to use force against the so called red sanders smugglers,” she said.