One of the five men who the police in Chennai claimed to have killed in a controversial “encounter” on Thursday is actually alive in his village in Bihar. The voter ID cards of two other dead men bearing Bihar addresses have been found to be 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 Patna, on Friday when journalists and government officials visited his home to ascertain the Chennai police’s claims that he was one of the five “bank robbers” shot dead.
“Where is this Chennai,” asked Rai. Hundreds of curious and worried people from nearby villages gathered in his village, Moujipur, after learning of his death. According to the Chennai police, four of the five men shot dead were from Bihar — two from Patna district, and one each from Vaishali and Nalanda districts.
The voter ID cards of two “dead men” — Harish Kumar of Vaishali and Vinod Kumar of Patna — were found to be fake, said the Bihar police after verification, while the identity of the fourth “dead” man — Vinay Prasad of Nalanda — was yet to be ascertained. The Chennai police had claimed that the identity of the five men was known from voter ID cards purportedly found in their flat at Velachery.
“As per our verification, the voter identity card details given to us are fake. The cards seem to have been forged. We are yet to confirm the whereabouts of the man from Nalanda,” said ADGP (HQ) Ravindra Kumar.