Raipur: In another indictment of security forces in the Bastar hit Maois, a justice commission investigating the murder of eight people in the village of Edesmetta in 2013, had concluded that no one was killed was a Maoist, as claimed at the time of the shooting.
The troops may have opened fire panicked and finally killed one of their own too, the word panel said.
Commission one person, led by Justice V K Agrawal, a retired Judge Madhya Pradesh HC, submitted his report to the state government last week.
Government spokesman said the possibility would be placed in the next assembly session.
The shooting took place on the night intervention on May 17-18 2013, at Edesmetta, a forest village, about 30 km from the headquarters of the Bijapur Regency and 440 km south of Raipur.
A group of local tribes has collected to celebrate the Beej Pandum festival when 1,000 strange security officers appear and start shooting.
Eight people were killed.
Cobra CRPF initially claimed to have damaged Maoist’s hiding and it had replied after being fired by Maois.
According to sources, the Judicial Commission has observed that the forces might have been fired in panic and the incident could be avoided to have better field intelligence.
The Commission also noted that Cobra Cottable Dev Prakash was killed by Friendship API and not by Maoist’s bullets, which showed that the weapons loaded the muzzle claimed to have been confiscated from that place was not proven to shoot at him, the source said.
The Commission also doubted the seizure of weapons from the place, noting that none of them were sent to the Forensic Laboratory.
The report of the Judicial Commission Edesmetta was the second investigation to demand security forces in Bastar to lose civil life.
The Judicial Commission that investigated Sarkeguda meeting where 17 people were killed in 2012, had concluded that the forces had fired “unilaterally, without provocation”.
8 Killed in 2013 CRPF Weren’t Reds: Probe Report
