Chennai encounter: NHRC to send fact-finding team

The room at the Housing Board Colony apartment in Velachery, Chennai, where the suspected robbers were killed on Thursday. Photo: A. Muralitharan

The National Human Rights Commission will soon send a team to Chennai to find out the truth of the alleged encounter in which five persons were shot dead by the police, NHRC chairman K.G. Balakrishnan said on Saturday.

“We have come across the reports. We will send a team to find out the truth”, Justice Balakrishnan who was in Patna to attend a seminar at Magadh Mahila College told reporters.

“The team will go through post-mortem and forensic reports and try to unravel the truth”, he said.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has directed Director General of Police Abhayanand and the State Home Department to find out details of the alleged encounter in Chennai in which four persons from the State were shot dead by the police.

A total five persons — four from Bihar and one from West Bengal suspected to have been involved in two recent bank heists were shot dead in the alleged encounter in the early hours at Velachery in Chennai on Thursday.

“Let the DGP and Home Department find out the facts first,” Mr. Kumar said when asked about the State government’s next course of action in the matter.