Hyderabad: Telangana High Court has asked the Director General of Police (DGP) to locate missing Communist Party of India (Maoist) member Chandan Mira and his wife by Monday, January 27.
The court’s direction comes after a Habeas Corpus petition was filed. It is to be noted that the couple was allegedly detained by men in plain clothes claiming to be cops, from their Jagathgurigutta residence, in Hyderabad, late on Friday night, the petition stated.
Filed by Professor Gaddam Laxman, president of the Civil Liberties Committee, the writ petition claimed that Swathy is a housewife and not a Maoist. He also raised fear over Misra being killed in an encounter.
Representing the professor, counsel D Suresh Kumar stated that over 24 hours have passed after they were taken away by the police. Since then, they have been incommunicado.
After hearing the petition, a division bench of Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya and Justice Madhusudhan Rao Bobbili Ramaiah directed the DGP, Dr Jitender, to file a compliance report before them on Monday. It further directed the police to provide sufficient protection to Swathy’s brother Kranthi, an eyewitness to the incident, and establish ownership of the vehicle in which the couple was taken.
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Earlier in January, 16 Maoist leaders, including a key member of the group from Telangana, were killed in an encounter with security forces in Chhattisgarh. As Swaroop Oorilla, the special government pleader for the advocate general, told the court that Misra had a case registered against him in Andhra Pradesh, the bench directed the DGP to ascertain if the AP police had arrested the couple.
It, however, dismissed the advocate general’s argument about there being no proof to ascertain that the people who took away the couple were cops. The court observed that it was unacceptable that the police, who are lawkeepers of the state, would feign ignorance of the incident where two persons have disappeared without trace or are unable to trace them even after 24 hours.
Further, the bench struck down the government pleader’s observation that the Jagadgirigutta SHO could not make any headway in the case owing to technical reasons.
In its observation, the High Court said, “The SHO being in charge of the law and order situation in the particular colony/area, cannot have any basis to say that they do not have information about the incident…The fact remains that the couple was taken away from their house without following due process of law and Swathy’s brother has not been able to contact her since then.”
