Headlines
Andhra police defends killings of 20 woodcutters
Tirupati, April 8
Fifteen of the 20 woodcutters
killed in an alleged gun battle with police in Andhra Pradesh have been
identified while the police have defended their action saying they
fired in self-defence.
The bodies of seven of the slain
woodcutters, who were working for red sander smugglers, were handed over
to their relatives. The killings took place in Chittoor district.
The
bodies were given to their families after an autopsy at the Ruya
Hospital in this temple town. Almost all the deceased are from
neighbouring Tamil Nadu.
Police enforced tight security around
the hospital as the killings have evoked widespread condemnation from
political parties and human rights groups, who termed the encounter as
fake.
Some rights activists staged a protest outside the hospital, raising slogans against the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government.
A team of officials from Tamil Nadu reached Tirupati along with seven ambulances to receive the bodies.
The Andhra government officials set up a help desk to provide information to the relatives of the slain woodcutters.
Police said it gunned down the smugglers at two places in Seshachalam forests early Tuesday.
Director
General of Police J.V. Ramudu, who reviewed the situation with top
officials here, defended the police action, saying they opened fire in
self defence.
The police chief said the task force launched
combing operations after receiving information that smugglers had
entered the forests.
He said the task force personnel had to open as they were attacked by the smugglers.
He
said strong measures were inevitable to protect the forest wealth and
pointed out that it was for this very purpose that the task force was
constituted.
He said the smugglers had attacked forest officials and hacked them to death in the past.
Meanwhile,
the police and forest department released images of the smugglers
captured on CCTV cameras. The task force launched the combing operations
after watching the movement of smugglers
The CCTV cameras were installed in view of the increasing number of smugglers entering the forest and cutting the precious wood.