CRPF has ordered an inquiry into the recent encounter in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur where eight people were killed with locals alleging that the gunfight was fake and aimed at targeting innocent villagers.
The force, which led the operation that began on May 17, has instructed a Deputy Inspector General (DIG) rank official to probe the entire circumstances that led to the encounter and its aftermath.
The CRPF, according to senior officials, had moved a component of 700 troops from five directions on May 17 towards Pedi in the same district to launch an offensive against the Maoists suspected to have been gathered around that area.
The strike squad that started from Ganglur encountered "hostile fire" at Edasmeta village at about 11 PM and the crossfire went on for about an hour after which the squad, with an injured commando and a civilian and three suspects, retreated to their base the next morning.
The next day, another CRPF patrol near the same village spotted some bodies and informed the reinforcements to evacuate them for postmortem to a government health centre in Ganglur.
Senior officials did not rule not killing of some locals in the encounter but said all due precautions and measures were taken to carry out a result-oriented operation, which was aimed at taking on armed Naxalite cadres present in the area.
"The operation was based on intelligence inputs," a senior official said.
According to inputs received from the field at the forces' headquarters here, the "first bullet was fired from the other side" when the squad of CoBRA commandos reached Edasmeta village.
The state government had already ordered a judicial inquiry into the incident.
A Commission headed by Justice V K Agrawal, which is already probing a similar encounter that occurred at Sarkeguda in the same district on June 28-29 last year, will probe this incident too.
According to police, eight villagers, including three minors, and a CoBRA commando was killed in the gunbattle between security forces and the ultras near Edasmeta village in southern Chhattisgarh on the intervening night of May 17-18.
CRPF had already put in place additional precautionary measures in place after the Sarkeguda encounter last year but the allegations of this being a fake encountered have come to the fore again.
