The Chhattisgarh government Sunday ordered a probe into the March killings of seven tribals by police in a Maoist stronghold, succumbing to mounting pressure from the media and social groups.
In what is being called a fake encounter, a group of Chhattisgarh policemen in league with Special Police Officers (SPOs), who are drawn from local youths, swooped in on the Ponjer village in Bijapur district March 31.
They took seven tribal youths to the neighbouring Santoshpur village for 'interrogation' and then killed them one by one branding them Maoist sympathisers.
State's police chief O.P. Rathor has ordered a probe into the killings.
He has asked Bijapur district police chief Ratanlal to urgently send a responsible police officer to Ponjer village and report on the allegations of a fake encounter, an official press statement said Sunday.
He has also asked Ratanlal to register murder charges against the policemen concerned if they are found to have killed civilians as Maoist sympathisers.
'Rathor has instructed Bastar Range Inspector General R.K. Vij to ensure proper legal action against guilty cops and brief the government on what action he has taken,' the release added.
Media reports said policemen pumped bullets into the bodies of four civilians while three others were axed to death.
Several youths of the Ponjer and Santoshpur villages are reported to be missing after the killings while dozens of families have deserted the villages fearing more such action.
Santoshpur village is located just eight km from small Bijapur town, the district headquarters of Biajpur district. Bijapur along with the neighbouring Dantewada district are part of the Maoist zone. The radicals had butchered 55 cops March 15 in Bijapur's Rani Bodli village in one of their deadliest attacks.
The government's probe order comes after the Chhattisgarh State Human Rights Commission took up the issue in late April and sought a detailed report from the Bijapur district police chief.
(Source: IANS May 06, 2007)
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