DC CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi, Feb. 24

National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued notices to Tamil Nadu Police and the Chennai district magistrate (DM) Friday seeking reports on alleged encounter death of five suspected bank robbers, even as rights activists stepped up cry for action against cops alleging they gunned down the suspects in cold blood.

The NHRC action followed a complaint based on media reports questioning genuineness of the police claim that the suspects were shot because they refused to surrender and opened fire, said a commission release.

A senior official said NHRC had issued notices, with a directive to respond within eight weeks, to the
Tamil Nadu director general of police, Chennai DM and senior superintendent of police in connection with the shootout of Wednesday midnight.

NHRC also ordered a magisterial inquiry into the encounter and directed state police and the Chennai
DM to submit independent reports based on its guidelines. The commission also sought postmortem reports of the five dead.

TN police has come under intense fire from rights activists, with some demanding a CBI probe pointing out contradictions and inconsistencies in the police version of the “encounter”.

The most intriguing aspect is that heavy gunfire by police left the suspects in pools of blood but walls of their tiny living room did not have even a bloodstain.

The TV set and washing machine in the room also did not have a scratch.

Bank employees identify killed suspects

Seventeen employees of the two robbed banks in Chennai spent a few hours at the morgue at Rajiv Gandhi Government Hospital on Friday with magistrate Geetha Rani to identify suspects killed Wednesday midnight.

They identified leader of the gang Vinod Kumar by his two deformed fingers and told the magistrate two fingers of the man who brandished a gun while looting the banks were missing.

“We confirmed the presence of Vinod Kumar in our bank during the robbery on January 23,” K.M. Balaji, manager, Bank of Baroda, Perungudi, said.

‘Killed’ man alive in Bihar

While one of the five men who the police in Chennai claimed to have killed in a controversial “encounter” on Thursday is actually alive and happily living in his village in Bihar, voter identity cards of two other dead men bearing Bihar addresses have been found fake.

“How can I be dead? How can I be killed? I am speaking. I live here with my family,” said a shocked Chandrika Rai, a truck driver in Fatuha near Bihar capital Patna, on Friday when journalists and officials visited his home to ascertain claims by Chennai police that he was one of the five 'bank robbers' shot dead.

“Where is this Chennai?” asked Rai, insisting that he has never visited the TN capital. Hundreds of curious and worried people from nearby villages gathered in his village, Moujipur, after learning of his death.

According to Chennai police, four of the five men shot dead were from Bihar – two from Patna district, and one each from Vaishali and Nalanda districts.

Voter ID of 'dead man' Harish Kumar of Vaishali was found to be fake, said Bihar police after verification, while the identity of the fourth 'dead man' — Vinay Prasad of Nalanda — was yet to be ascertained.

The Chennai cops had claimed that the identity of the five men was known from voter IDs purportedly found in their flat at Velachery.

“As per our verification, the voter ID details given to us are fake,” said ADGP (headquarters) Ravindra Kumar.