IPS officer V C Sajjanar appears before SC appointed probe panel

Hyderabad: Senior IPS officer V C Sajjanar on Monday appeared before the three-member Inquiry Commission, constituted by the Supreme Court to inquire into the incidents leading to the death of four persons accused in the rape and murder of a woman veterinarian in an alleged encounter with police near here on December 6, 2019.

Sajjanar, now the Managing Director of Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC), and the then Cyberabad Police Commissioner were examined for the first time by the Commission, headed by former Supreme Court judge V S Sirpurkar.

The Commission recorded the statements of Sajjanar and he will again appear before it on Tuesday.

The Commission, which has completed the collection of records, has been examining witnesses and accordingly, some police officials, families of the accused, government officials, among others, have deposed before the panel so far at the commission’s office in the Telangana High Court premises here.

The Inquiry Panel’s proceedings are currently going on in a hybrid form (physical and virtual appearence). On August 3, 2021, the Supreme Court gave another six months to the commission to file final report on the encounter killing of four accused in the case of gang-rape and murder of the young veterinarian.

The Sirpurkar panel was set up on December 12, 2019 to inquire into the circumstances leading to the encounter and was to submit the report in six months.

According to the Cyberabad Police here, the accused kidnapped the woman veterinarian on the night of November 27 2019 and killed her after sexually assaulting her, and then took the body in a lorry to Chattanpalli near Hyderabad, where it was burnt under a culvert.

The four were arrested on November 29.

They were killed in police firing on December 6, 2019 at Chattanpalli when they were taken to the scene of crime near the culvert, under which the charred remains of the 25-year-old veterinarian were found on November 28, to recover her phone, wrist-watch and others pertaining to the case.

The Cyberabad police had said its personnel resorted to ”retaliatory” firing when two of the accused opened fire at police after snatching their weapons, besides attacking the latter with stones and sticks, resulting in injuries to two policemen.