Hyderabad: Family members of the five slain terror suspects alleged on Tuesday that the encounter was fake. Deceased terror suspect Viquar Ahmed’s father said that earlier too the police had tried to torture and kill them while taking them to court, and he had complained to state prison DG, chief justice of High Court and the Human Rights Commission in this regard.

“We want a CBI inquiry into the incident, and I will not accept the body till the government orders a probe. This is a clear-cut fake encounter as a revenge on part of the police,” said Viquar’s father Mohammed Ahmed.

The advocates said the trials of two major cases were going to end and the cops were afraid that the five would be acquitted. “Earlier, we had lodged a petition to move them from Warangal to Hyderabad prison and the court was going to decide on it today,” said their advocate M.A. Azeem.

“They never tried to escape in the last four years when they were taken to Warangal, Gujarat, and Hyderabad,” said terror suspect Syed Amjad Ali’s brother Imtiyaz Ali.
Slain terror suspect Dr Mohammed Hanif’s wife, Ishrat Banu, 34, also said that her husband was innocent and was framed.

Meanwhile, Nalgonda SP Vikramjeet Duggal said, “The five undertrials facing terror charges had been repeatedly asking the escort police to stop the vehicle for attending nature’s call and their request was refused twice. When they insisted again, the escort cops stopped the van and allowed them. They got down and while returning to the bus, they pounced on the policemen and snatched the weapon and opened fire. In self-defence our men opened fire. In this exchange of fire, five of them were killed and fortunately our men escaped death. However, a few of them received injuries and a reserve sub-inspector suffered serious injuries and was admitted to Warangal hospital.”

“Usually there are 15 to 20 escorts accompanying undertrials; they were using INSAS rifles and AK-47s. The terror accused were not handcuffed on both hands, only one hand was handcuffed. We are following National Human Rights Commission guidelines in dealing with the exchange of fire,” he said. The bodies were shifted to Jangaon mortuary for post-mortem.