The Telangana government has decided to form a Special Investigation Team to inquire into the April 7 encounter of Nalgonda district, in which five suspected terrorists were shot dead.
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has decided to order a full inquiry and has instructed Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma to issue orders on Monday to appoint a Special Investigation Team (SIT), an official release said on Sunday.
The chief minister has taken the decision keeping in view the doubts expressed by certain organisations and some individuals on the encounter, the official release added.
The move to constitute a SIT comes after Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi and other community leaders had met the chief minister last week seeking a probe and explanation to quell their doubts.
In the old city area of Saidabad, a meeting of over 600 people was held on Sunday on the killings under the leadership of Maulana Naseeruddin who has now started an organisation called Wahdat-e-Islami.
Five suspected terrorists – Viquar Ahmed, Syed Amjad Ali, Mohammed Zakir, residents of Hyderabad, Mohammed Haneef alias Dr Haneef, native of Ahmedabad, and Izhar Khan, native of Uttar Pradesh – were shot dead by police on April 7 when they allegedly tried to escape from a police van near Tangutur in Nalgonda district, while being taken to a court in Hyderabad.
According to the police, Viquar Ahmed asked to stop the van to use the toilet. After returning to the van, he snatched the Insas rifle of one of the police constables and opened fire. The other four also tried to snatch weapons of accompanying policemen, and were killed when the police fired in self-defence.