AAP petition in Chhattisgarh HC seeks SIT, judicial probe into Madkam Hidme encounter

Sori has alleged that Hidme was not a Maoist and was picked from outside her home, raped and then killed.

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Sori said Friday that she and other members of the AAP team that had sought to go to Gompad were forced to return after the “administration engineered a protest”.

“For the past three days, they have been doing one thing after another to prevent us from going. Around noon, a group of people, at least a hundred, came to the circuit house where we were waiting and started raising slogans. Instead of controlling the crowds, the police told us that they would not be able to handle it and the best thing for us was to leave Konta. It is clear that the government is hiding what has happened in Gompad. I will now take this fight to Raipur and hold a demonstration there after speaking to other AAP members. I have been on a fast and I will not break it,” Sori said.

In the petition to the High Court, AAP state convenor Sanket Thakur, who is the petitioner, has taken note of a photograph of Hidme’s body, raising doubts over the seeming contradiction of the police claim that she was killed in an encounter as her uniform was “nearly spotless”. Thakur has filed a petition in court demanding that it call for all case-related documents. He has also demanded that a case of murder and rape be registered.

“We have also asked for setting up of an SIT of officers from outside Chhattisgarh and a judicial inquiry into the matter,” Thakur said.

When contacted, D M Awasthi, Special DG (Anti-Naxal Operations), said, “I have spoken to the Sukma SP and have told him to go to the spot. It is his moral duty to inquire into what happened. As far as Soni Sori or anyone else who wants to go, I have conveyed that nobody can be stopped as far as the Indian Constitution is concerned. They can go and visit the spot. If everything is right, there is no harm in people visiting.”