Hyderabad:
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has given a clean chit to the controversial killing of top Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad. This despite the fact that the post mortem has raised serious concerns about this encounter, even suggesting he was shot at close range.
"In the FIR, they claim that they had information that in Adilabad's forest, the Maoists are moving. So with that information, they have gone to the forest and on the hill top, there were 20 Maoists and from down, the police fired at them. So how does bullet enter the body from downwards to upwards while post- mortem report shows the bullet has entered from upside to down," said Varavara Rao, a Maoist sympathiser.
While the police officially maintain that Azad was killed in a genuine encounter with the police in the jungles of Adilabad forest on July 1, Maoist sympathisers have alleged that he and a journalist called Hemchandra Pandey were picked up from Nagpur and killed in Adilabad. Now with the post-mortem report drilling holes in the police story, the Andhra Pradesh police has promised to conduct an internal probe.
"Whatever allegations have been made by the Maoists are baseless," said RR Girish Kumar, Deputy General of Police, Andhra Pradesh.
But not all questions are baseless. Like when Naxals are known to try to take away the bodies of those who get killed in encounters, why did they leave behind Azad's body, with his weapon behind? Particularly when the encounter according to the FIR reportedly happened in the dead of night and the police party went to the site only in the morning.
The UPA government is meanwhile trying to ensure there is no political fallout. Mamata Bannerjee had raised doubts about Azad's killing at a rally in Lalgarh.
"She has stated that if Azad was killed because of the factor that he was trying to have negotiations, then that position should be explained. Recently Andhra government also explained the situation and the circumstances in which the killing took place. Therefore I don't think there is any controversy with her statements," said Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.(
Read: Pranab defends Mamata's comments on Maoist Azad's killing)