Even as the Hyderabad High Court has set a time-limit of 60 days for the Special Investigation Team on the Chittoor encounter to complete its work, the probe into the Nalgonda encounter seems to be going the other way. Senior IPS officer Sandeep Shandilya, the head of the SIT that is probing the death of five undertrial prisoners, has gone on a two-week leave further delaying the it. The SIT, formed by the Telangana State Government, has still not visited the place near Aler in Nalgonda district where Viqaruddin Ahmed and four other undertrial prisoners were killed in a shootout by police on April 7.
Inspector General Police (Personnel) Shandilya's decision to proceed on leave has left many senior police officials surprised and is likely to further delay the process. This has raised questions about the seriousness of the Government in carrying out its promise of bringing out the truth of the encounter to light. Police sources say that the SIT members are under tremendous pressure as the killings have taken a communal color and the minority community leaders and organisations were running a sustained campaign openly expressing their lack of confidence in SIT and attributing motives to it. Muslim leaders as well as the families of the slain undertrials have demanded an independent probe into the incident to ensure punishment to the guilty.