Telangana cops in a soup after Viqaruddin, four others die in 'encounter'

Hyderabad: The killing of Viqaruddin Ahmed and five others on the Warangal-Nalgonda district border of Telangana on Tuesday has given rise to too many questions. The holes in the police story are too gaping to be covered up, no matter what the government would say to defend the encounter. [caption id=“attachment_2188127” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Police men stand guard at the spot where five alleged Islamist militants were shot dead in an encounter near Alair in Nalgonda district of Telangana on Tuesday. PTI[/caption] With grave criminal charges against them, Viqaruddin and his gangsters were certainly no saints but the police’s embarrassing account of the encounter makes them look better. It takes only common sense, as Rights activists point out, to finds the weaknesses in the narrative. Muslim United Forum and Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee too have asserted that the police story of the encounter doesn’t hold water. Here are the six reasons why the police story is feeble and goes awry. 1. The police said that Viqaruddin had the vehicle stopped, got down, attended a nature’s call, returned and then tried to snatch the weapon from a policeman. How can he snatch the weapon when his hands were cuffed? The picture released by the police clearly shows that Viqaruddin’s right hand was cuffed to the seat? Which hand did he use to open fire on them? He was shot at point blank after his hand was tied to the hand rest. 2. How come the four others also tried to snatch the weapons when their hands too were cuffed? If one person was allowed out to attend nature’s call, all the other four were inside the bus. How could they snatch arms from the police while each one of them was guarded by two policemen? 3. There were 17 policemen on duty in three vehicles guarding the prisoners while they were being taken to the court in Hyderabad. How could the handcuffed prisoners “overpower” the armed guards? 4. Even if they all ganged up and hatched a conspiracy to kill the policemen and flee, why would they do it inside the mini-bus that was carrying them? 5. One of the slain prisoners, Haneef, is a doctor. He used to practice Unani and Ayurveda. There is no known record of his being acquainted with firearms. The only case against him is giving shelter to Viqaruddin. Therefore, how do the police justify him opening fire at the police and in turn getting killed. N Venugopal, editor of Veekshanam, a leftist political magazine, who raised the above questions too said that Viqaruddin was shown as the main accused in the Mecca Masjid blast case in 2007. However, all the 70 accused persons, including him, in the case were let off and a compensation was paid for falsely implicating them, after Swami Aseemananda of Hindu Vahini, who was arrested in Pune, confessed to having planted the bombs in the mosque. Viqaruddin, eventually, was enraged and chose the same day of the blasts to take revenge. Senior advocate in the high court of Hyderabad and leader of Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee leader Bojja Tarakam and general secretary of the committee Lateef Khan demanded a judicial probe by a sitting high court judge into the encounter, release of the 135 Muslim youths, who migrated to Hyderabad from different parts of the country and also Myanmar, who were detained “illegally”, and also the resignation of Chief Minister KCR, if he could not ensure that his assurances are fulfilled. The committee also raised a pointer at the media in general and vernacular media in particular for branding Muslim youths as terrorists and also commencing trial on sensitive issues which had legal ramifications only to “create a public discourse in favour of the State”. Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehaadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) also described the encounter as a “murder in cold blood” by the police and demanded a judicial probe in to the incident.