Civil society members of a government-appointed committee to facilitate the surrender and rehabilitation of Maoists in Karnataka will visit the site of the extrajudicial killing of Maoist Vikram Gowda and speak to local residents. The move comes amid growing calls from civil society members for an investigation into Vikram’s extrajudicial killing earlier this week and to book the Anti-Naxal Force’s (ANF) police officials involved in accordance with law. 

Writer Banjagere Jayaprakash, one of the three civil society members of the committee, told TNM that they will visit Peetebailu village in Hebri taluk, Udupi district, on Friday and speak to local residents. The other members of the committee, which is headed by the Chief Secretary, include senior police officers and other senior government officials. 

Vikram, who belonged to the Gowdalu tribe, went underground two decades ago, due to alleged harassment and torture by the police when the protests against eviction from forests in the Malnad region of the Western Ghats were at their height. He was an activist for several years before becoming a Maoist.

The ANF killed Vikram Gowda late on Monday, November 18, in Peetebailu. The police claimed that they had gone to the village after receiving a tip-off that Naxals were likely to visit three houses to collect rations. Police have said that they saw Vikram and a few others enter the area, and although the police asked them to surrender, they fired, forcing the ANF to retaliate. 

Jayaprakash condemned the killing of Vikram and said that based on the information at present, the claims of the police were suspect. “The police said that the Naxals fired on them, after which the ANF retaliated. They have recovered one bullet from the site, but there isn’t enough proof that the Maoists fired weapons. It looks like the police firing was unprovoked, and what happened was murder. If we find anything amiss after speaking to the local people, we will write to the Chief Secretary,” he said.

He will be joined by the other two civil society members of the committee, former journalist Parvatheesha and advocate KP Sripal. 

Jayaprakash said that when Maoists had been seen in the region, the police should have asked the committee to intervene. “Were the Maoists in Pettebailu to surrender or to reorganise their movement? We don’t know. But when the police learnt that they were seen in that village, they should have brought us (the civil society members) in. There has been practically no news of illegal activity being carried out in those forests for over a decade. We should have been given a chance to persuade them to give up arms and join the mainstream. Instead, they began combing operations.”

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Home Minister G Parameshwara have defended the extrajudicial killing, saying that it was necessary to curb the Maoist movement. 

Parameshwara’s statement that the Maoists would have killed the police if the ANF had not opened fire added credence to the criticism that the police had carried out an extrajudicial killing. A day later, Parameshwara doubled down and said Vikram Gowda’s killing “was not a fake encounter.”

Jayaprakash said that the Maoists should have been booked under the law. “They should have been booked for illegal possession of arms under the law. What they are doing is illegal, but the police should proceed in accordance with the law. This is not a war-like situation that calls for such extreme action on the part of the police. They may be extremists, and we may not agree with their ideology or methods, but action should be taken in a lawful manner. The police should not decide on who is a criminal. That is a job for the courts. No one should be killed, whether it is the police or the Maoists,” he added.

He said that the National Human Rights Commission guidelines issued in 1997 in cases of extrajudicial killings must be followed. “A case must be filed against all the police officials involved in the killing. The case must also be investigated by a retired judge.”

The Karnataka unit of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties too has called for the police to be booked for the extrajudicial killing. In a statement released on Wednesday, November 20, PUCL condemned what it called the “murder” of Vikram Gowda at the hands of ANF. 

Noting that the police had “strangely” filed an FIR against Vikram, PUCL said, “The Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita (BNS) do not recognise any exemption to the law of murder under the heading of encounter. The legally recognised exception to murder is self-defence. However, the plea of self-defence has to be taken at the time of trial, and it is up to the judicial process to determine whether the act of murder is entitled to be excused on the grounds that it was committed as an act of self-defence.”

The statement said that the “unambiguous” legal position under both the IPC and BNS is that the killing of Vikram Gowda “should be treated as murder and an FIR should be registered against all police officers who were involved in the killing.” 

In the case of PUCL vs the state of Maharashtra, the Supreme Court said that whenever a specific complaint alleging criminal acts by the police, which would make a cognisable case of homicide, an FIR must be registered and the case investigated by a specialised investigation agency, PUCL said.

Journalist Naveen Soorinje raised questions about the police claims. “The police had arrested two people on the suspicion of being Naxal in Dharmasthala (Dakshina Kannada district) a few days before the encounter. Who were they? Were they produced before a magistrate? The police must be answerable for why they killed a man.”

Speaking to the media, he recalled the ANF making similar claims in October 2011, when he was a district reporter in Dakshina Kannada. “The ANF claimed Maoists had opened fire on the police after a constable named Mahadev Mane was shot dead on October 8, 2011 during combing operations in Savanalu village in Belthangady taluk.

“My sources told me a police official had died during combing operations. At the time, the police had claimed that they encountered Maoists who opened fire killing Mane and that the ANF had retaliated. Some months later, an inquiry found that Mane was killed by an ANF bullet. Back then, in the FIR, Vikram Gowda and other Naxals had been named as Mahadev Mane’s killers,” Naveen said.

Two former Maoists, Noor Shridhar and Sirimane Nagaraj, held a press conference in Bengaluru on November 21, questioning the claims of the police. They called the encounter “fake” and demanded that an FIR be filed against the police officials involved and also a judicial inquiry. 

Noor Shridhar and Sirimane Nagaraj had surrendered around a decade ago through the government-appointed committee of which the assassinated journalist Gauri Lankesh was a member. The committee had facilitated the surrender and rehabilitation of several Maoists at the time.

Noor Shridhar also called on the Maoists to rethink their path and consider giving up violence.