Social activist Swami Agnivesh who is trying to negotiate between the Maoists and Centre met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi on Tuesday and requested an impartial judicial probe into the murder of Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad who was killed on July 2.
The Andhra Pradesh police ruled out the possibility of a judicial inquiry into the alleged fake encounter of Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad on Sunday, but assured of an probe by the department into the incident.
Home Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday rejected the demand of Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee for an inquiry into the killing of Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad. "Please tell me under which law the Centre should initiate an inquiry into the encounter killing of Maoist leader Azad, I am asking my non-lawyer friend (Bharatiya Janata Party leader) Yashwant Sinha," Chidambaram said while replying to a discussion in the Lok Sabha.
'He said there was no question of ordering a probe at the Centre's level. This comes within the jurisdiction of the Andhra Pradesh government,' Swami Agnivesh tells Rediff.com
Azad, a senior member of banned Communist Party of India-Maoist Central Committee, and Pandey, who was dubbed by the police as a Maoist, were killed in an alleged fake encounter on the intervening night of July 1-2, 2010, in Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh.
Swami Agnivesh, who has offered to be a moderator for talks between the Centre and Naxals, claimed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had accepted his demand for an inquiry into the killing of Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad but government had backed out later.
Indian authorities need to look into the death of journalist Hem Chandra Pandey who was killed early this month in an encounter with police in Andhra Pradesh along with top Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, a top United Nations official said.
The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to order any judicial inquiry or a probe by a Special Investigation Team into the alleged fake encounter killings of top Naxalite leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad and a Delhi journalist Hemchandra Pandey.
"The Maoists have communicated to me through a channel that they are ready to consider the government's offer of talks provided the Centre or the Andhra Pradesh government orders a judicial enquiry into the encounter," Agnivesh told PTI over phone.
Body of Hemchandar Pandey, the man who was killed along with the top Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad by the Andhra Pradesh police in Adilabad district on July 2, was brought to Hyderabad on Tuesday and was kept at the Basheerbag Press Club.
Even as the slain top Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad was cremated in Hyderabad in the presence of hundreds of mourners, including writers, poets and activists, the CPI Maoist has announced a week-long protest against what they call a "fake encounter".
The revolutionary writers association leader and poet Varavara Rao has demanded the Central Bureau of Investigation to enlarge the ambit of its investigations into the fake encounter of prominent Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alis Azad and freelance journalist Hemchandr Pandey.
The claims of the activists have evoked a strong reaction from the state police chief RR Girish Kumar who insisted that there was no truth in these allegations. These are false baseless allegations against the police, he said adding that the vested interest at the behest of CPI Maoist were misquoting the contents of the post mortem.
The CPI (Maoist) on Sunday vowed to avenge the death of its top leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad in an encounter with police in Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh.
Azad, an M Tech degree holder from Warangal regional engineering college, had been with the Maoist movement since the last three and a half decades and had the reputation of being an expert strategist. He was an accused in the killing of Congress legislator C Narsi Reddy along with 10 others in Mahbubnagar district on August 15, 2005.
One of the top most leaders of CPI-Maoist in the country Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad was alive and safe, a senior Maoist leader has said.
The alleged encounter killing of Communist Party of India Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad took a new twist on Saturday after it was revealed that the other 'Maoist leader' killed in the encounter was actually a freelance journalist from Delhi. The man has been identified as Hemchandar Pandey, 32, a resident of Dewaltal village in Pithorgarh in Uttarkhand. Pandey was a freelance journalist working in Delhi.
Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee called for peace in Lalgarh in West Bengal during her rally at the Maoist-infested region on Monday.
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to "consider" a plea for an independent probe into the killings of top Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad and scribe Hemchandra Pandey in an allegedly staged gun battle by the Andhra Pradesh police, who were given clean chit by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The two-day shutdown has been called to protest the killing of Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad in Andhra Pradesh's Adilabad District last week.
Amid reports of Maoists planning to obstruct train movement during the two-day bandh call given by them later this week, railways said on Monday that it was taking the situation seriously and has kept 'crack teams' on standby.
'Even dead bodies tell a lot of stories. In Azad's case, the entry wounds are all narrow in diameter, meaning he was fired at from point blank range. Had he been involved in the gun-battle and the police had fired from the distance that they claim, the wounds would have been bigger in diameter.'
. The party's senior most leader and politburo member Azad alias Cherukuri Rajkumar has mysteriously gone missing and the organisation has alleged that Rajkumar was caught by the Special Investigations Bureau of Andhra Pradesh police and his life was under grave threat.
