Police State

NHRC and the Justice Ranganath Mishra inquiry into encounters in Andhra Pradesh. An extract

K.G. Kannabiran

K. Balagopal and I prepared a petition that was submitted to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). That petition emphasized the enormity of the problem of encounter killings in Andhra Pradesh, providing details of 250 deaths in encounters in the state.

Justice Ranganath Mishra was the chairman of the NHRC. Although there were divided opinions about him, he was among the best judges to have occupied that position. He had the courage of conviction to take a firm stand. While submitting the petition to him, we requested him to tour the state and familiarize himself with the situation on the ground, and he agreed. In this process I met him several times. The inquiry by the NHRC took place in 1994-95.

Justice Ranganath Mishra came to Andhra Pradesh and held meetings at four or five places. Even while he was here, the police in Warangal and Anantapur attempted to physically attack Balagopal. I decided to attend the inquiry scheduled to be held in Nalgonda and informed Justice Mishra on the phone. I told him that we wanted to show him the true character of the Andhra Pradesh police and that I would demonstrate this to him in Nalgonda. I was invited to the dais with Justice Mishra. The police brought a gang of rowdies to the meeting, who began to shout slogans and tried to disrupt the meeting. As I got off the dais and went towards them, Special Branch police in mufti surrounded me and began to push, jostle and manhandle me. I think Gopinath Reddy was the SP of Nalgonda—he just stood by and watched while I was being pushed around. After a while, pretending to intervene, he walked me to my car. Vasanth had accompanied me to Nalgonda. She drew Justice Mishra’s attention to what was happening off stage. Till then, his attention was directed elsewhere. He had not seen what was happening to me. He was very angry. He cancelled lunch and the remaining programme, summoned the police, vented his anger on them and asked for an explanation. They cooked up some story.

After this, Justice Ranganath Mishra returned to Hyderabad and commenced an inquiry into encounter deaths. Of the 250 cases we had placed before him, he asked us to select five or six cases on which he would conduct an inquiry. There was an unusual obstacle we faced. He said there was a limitation in that he could only inquire into encounters that had taken place one or two years prior. This surprised me because it did not make any sense. There can be no limitation of time for investigation or inquiry into crime, especially murder. Yet, there was a provision that remined in the law—any of our learned judges could at any time have struck it down, but this did not happen. Justice Mishra now pulled out that limitation. As a matter of fact, since an inquiry of this nature could not result in convictio