The Telangana High Court on Thursday directed the State government to conduct a re-postmortem examination of P. Linganna, who died in an alleged exchange of fire with the police near Nandi hillock of Rollagadda village outskirts in Bhadadri-Kothagudem district on Wednesday.
While the Bhadradri-Kothagudem police, in an official statement, said the 43-year-old Linganna was a Naxalite of Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (New Democracy Group), the TS Civil Liberties Committee claimed he was an “activist fighting for the rights of the tribal people”.
CLC president G. Laxman filed a public interest petition (PIL) seeking a direction to the government to conduct autopsy again and charged it was a ‘fake encounter’. Counsel for the CLC V. Raghunath, moved a lunch motion in the HC which was heard by a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice Shameem Akhtar.
After hearing the arguments of the petitioners counsel and Additional Advocate General J. Ramachandra Rao on behalf of the State government, the Bench directed the government to preserve the body of the person and instructed the body to be shifted to Gandhi Hospital here by Friday.