Four-week timeframe for encounter probe
SHILLONG: The additional district magistrate DD Shira will head the magisterial inquiry into the alleged fake encounter which led to the killing of four ANVC(B) cadres by Police on January 11 in West Garo Hills.
The magistrate has been given four weeks time to complete the probe, the West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner Pravin Bakshi informed over phone from Tura.
The magisterial probe will look into all aspects related to the encounter which resulted in the death of four ANVC (B) cadres.
The decision to have the magisterial probe was following the meeting of several NGOs with Bakshi recently.
Our Tura Correspondent adds: The bodies of the four ANVC-B militants who were shot dead by police on the outskirts of Tura over ten days ago were finally laid to rest at a burial site in Tura’s Gaudhya Math on Tuesday evening with no family or relatives coming forward to claim them.
The order to dispose the bodies was reportedly given by the magisterial court in Tura after a petition was filed by the Investigation Officer for the case since no one had come forward to identify or claim the bodies even a week after the encounter.
The bodies were already in a highly decomposed state.
Staff from the Tura Municipal Board removed the bodies of the four militants from the morgue at the Tura civil hospital around 2 in the afternoon after having obtained the court’s order.
The bodies were taken to Gaudhya Math locality, near Nabin Pally, where a burial site is located and the burial process began shortly after 5 O’clock in the evening. The entire process which was overseen by a district magistrate was over by 7 PM, informed police officials.
The four militants had been killed in an alleged exchange of fire with Tura police commandos at Daren Agal village, near Dobasipara, on the night of January 11th. The encounter came just hours after a crude bomb attack next to a petrol pump in Hawakhana locality of the town which was blamed on ANVC-B militants but responsibility was taken by the A’chik Tiger force outfit.