Andhra Pradesh   

Human rights panel takes dim view of pre-dawn arrest

Special Correspondent

Police reports on the arrests of emissaries being studied

HYDERABAD: The Andhra Pradesh State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has taken a dim view of the pre-dawn swoop by the police on the house of former CPI (Maoist) emissary, Varavara Rao, while arresting him in the wake of the ban on Maoists and their frontal organisations.

The commission on Monday perused the reports filed by the police in response to notices served by it on the Director-General of Police (DGP) and the city Police Commissioner seeking to know whether the `due procedure of law' was followed in effecting the arrest of Varavara Rao and his colleague, G. Kalyan Rao.

The SHRC `suo motu' registered a case on the arrests based on media reports and served notices on the two top police officials on Friday.

Commission Chairman B. Subhashan Reddy's repeated poser to M. Ramakrishna Rao, Chief Legal Advisor to the State police, was whether there was a necessity for the police to go to Mr. Varavara Rao's house to arrest him at 3 a.m.

Mr. Ramakrishna Rao, who was appearing for the DGP, replied that he was in no position to answer the question and that he had come prepared only to furnish details of the arrest in the context of guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court.

Dignity

Justice Reddy said the commission was interested in going into wider aspect of `dignity' of human life as reflected in the arrest. "We will think whether to appoint amicus curiae (friend of the court) to go into violation of Constitutional rights, particularly Article 21, in making the arrest," he remarked.

He also sought several other details like whether the notice of ban was served through a registered post on Revolutionary Writers Association, of which Mr. Varavara Rao was a member. Whether an advisory committee as recommended by the Public Security Act was constituted to clear the proposal for ban. Whether the banned organisation was given 15 days' time to appeal before the committee.

Justice Reddy adjourned the case to Wednesday for hearing on the queries raised by the commission.

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