The Calcutta High Court gave two week?s time to the state government and the Centre to file affidavits on the encounter between the police and Maoists on June 16 in the Ranja forest at Salboni.
Mahashewata Devi had filed a PIL in the second week of July alleging that the security forces carried the bodies from the forest tied to bamboo posts ? in an animal like posture. This act was a violation of human rights, the PIL said. The petition raised doubt whether the state police has started an investigation as per the guidelines framed by the National Human Rights Commission.
According to the guidelines, the police should start a case under 302 IPC in the case of encounter carried out by them. During the hearing on July 23, Advocate General Bolai Roy had said that he would seek instruction from the Centre on the case as the CRPF was involved in the encounter. Today Roy said that he has not received any instruction till now.
Advocate Ragunath Chakraborty, counsel of the petitioner, pleaded that though the operation was carried out by the central-state joint forces, the central force had acted under the supervision of the state police. So the state police was responsible for the incident. Today Roy said that the bodies of the eight Maoists were lying in the morgue and nobody has claimed them so far.
The petitioner also contended that the security forces had arrested Rameswar Murmu, a mentally challenged boy, after the operations. At present Murmu is in police custody. So a medical board should be formed to examine the boy, Chakraborty said.
Roy, however, said that terrorists pose as mentally-challenged persons to avoid interrogation by the police. But Murumu could be examined by a medical board, he added.
After the hearing, the Division of Chief Justice J N Patel and Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya asked the state to explain the case of Rameswar Murmu in the affidavit.