EXCLUSIVE - STF taken to task

Sadashiva panel indicts the Special Task Force of excesses committed in the hunt for Veerappan

By PC Vinoj Kumar
Chennai

The Justice Sadashiva Panel, which probed allegations against the Joint Special Task Force (JSTF) of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka during its Veerappan operations, has questioned the exercise of police powers by the JSTF, and the veracity of some of the encounters. In its report it has also confirmed the allegations of torture and rape. The panel observed, “Having regard to all aspects of the matter, we are of the opinion that in the interests of justice, in six cases in which firing seems to have been done from very close range and the 12 cases in which the victims had been fired at from both sides, the families of the deceased victims deserve to be compensated suitably by payment of substantial monetary relief.” The report also notes, “The main point for consideration from the legal angle is whether the exercise of police powers was within the jurisdiction of the STF as formally determined under law. The two STFs in this case had merely functioned as armed forces and did not have formally notified jurisdiction for exercise of the normal police powers of arrest, search, etc.”

The panel pulled up the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments for not duly constituting the STFs. Observing that both the governments “seem to have erred in this aspect,” the panel notes, “Headquarters of each STF should have been formally notified as a police station under Section 2(s) of the Criminal Procedure Code and its area should have been specified suitably to cover the entire area of Veerappan operation.”

“When the commanding officers of the STFs and their personnel get the feeling that they have the power to act without any regard to legal provisions, it is likely to induce a certain measure of high-handedness in their work. This has to be guarded against.”

Allegations of illegal detention and torture against the JSTF have stuck. Citing the observations of the TADA Court, the panel notes that they “lend support to the general version given by most witnesses before the panel about their having been taken into custody by the STF on a much earlier date than mentioned in the record, kept in illegal custody for a long period when they were subjected to humiliating treatment and torture, and later produced in court on a false charge under TADA merely to legitimise their arrest.”

The panel has dwelt on the circumstances leading to the use of third-degree methods during interrogation. “Since Veerappan had successfully remained at large and was also active in the interior areas beyond the reach of the STF for a long time, the STF would have felt the pressure of public opinion besides professional directions from above to intensify their efforts to nab him. This would have naturally induced them to adopt pressure tactics to extract maximum information from the villagers under interrogation.”

“While some restraint on the movement of persons under prolonged interrogation is understandable in the context of the prevailing situation, excesses committed by the STF in the course of interrogation in brazen violation of human rights cannot be justified. In the absence of any in-built mechanism to guard against such excesses resulting from professional anxiety to secure results, it is believable that the STF personnel had committed some excesses.”

On encounters, the panel has opined, “The allegations made by some witnesses regarding the veracity of the encounters, as recorded by the police, cannot be totally brushed aside as baseless. It seems to us that the inquires made by the prescribed authorities in the two states immediately after the alleged encounters had perhaps not taken into account all the relevant evidence concerning the matter, particularly the version from the relatives of deceased persons, and the considered opinion of a ballistics expert as regards the gunshot injuries from the encounters.”

However, the panel has not identified personnel involved in the allegations. It has stated that “it is well nigh impossible, at this stage and distance of time, to fix the identity of the police personnel involved in the allegations which have been held as true as far as the injuries suffered by the victims are concerned, more particularly where it was admitted by some witnesses that they were kept blindfolded.”

The panel has also observed, “Whatever be the official disposal of such ‘encounters’, the fact remains that the villagers concerned cling on to their allegation that persons had been deliberately shot dead by the STF even while they were in the custody of the STF for interrogation.”

“Taking note of the psyche of the villagers in the affected area and their expectation of a fair and just mechanism to guard against such ‘encounters’ in future, we recommend the detailed procedure of a mandatory judicial inquiry in such cases, as recommended by the National Police Commission.”

In all, 193 people deposed before the panel as victims. Eleven women alleged that they were “taken into custody by Karnataka police, detained illegally for periods varying from 15 days to one-and-a-half years and were raped during detention and also tortured physically.”

The panel observes: “We find that excepting one instance, the evidence is not adequate to hold that they had been raped by the STF personnel, as alleged by them. Further, none of the witnesses could pinpointedly and convincingly identify the person who had committed the rape.”

The panel has recommended compensation to “victims of allegations of excesses that are held acceptable by the panel, TADA detenues who remained in jail for several years till they were acquitted in September 2001, whose cases had not been properly reviewed in time by the state review committee, and families of persons shown as killed in suspicious circumstances. It has left the quantum of relief in each case to be determined by the National Human Rights Commission.


Nov 12 , 2005