Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala High Court on Tuesday directed the state government to preserve until further orders the bodies of two Maoists who were killed in an encounter in the Agali forests last week, after their relatives filed a plea against a court order permitting their cremation.
It also directed the government to keep the bodies of the Maoists — Karthi and Manivasagam — at the Thrissur Government Medical College mortuary and produce documents, including post-mortem reports, before it.
Justice KP Narayana Pisharody gave the order on the petition by relatives of the two Maoists, challenging a sessions court order permitting cremation of the bodies as per rules.
Karthi’s brother M Murukesan and Manivasagan’s sister Lakshmi had moved the sessions court to stop the cremation until the post-mortem report was out. In their plea filed before the high court, they alleged the sessions court did not consider the plea for an independent and impartial probe into the case.
The sessions court in Palakkad had disposed of the matter on Monday, after finding that there was no lapse on the part of police and none of the specific guidelines of the Supreme Court were ignored or flouted.
Four Maoists — Karthi, Rema, Aravind and Manivasagan — were killed allegedly in an exchange of fire started by the ultras during a two-day police combing operation in Palakkad district last week.
The LDF government, led by Pinarayi Vijayan, had been receiving flak since the past few days over the Maoist killings and the arrest of two student activists under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
On Monday, Vijayan, while defending the police action in which the ultras were killed, said Maoists are not "holy souls" and "lambs" and accused the Congress-led UDF of trying to 'glorify' them.
Referring to killings of security personnel and farmers by Maoists in states like Chhattisgarh and Bihar, he sought to know if the United Democratic Front (UDF) wanted such a situation in Kerala.
Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala has alleged that since the LDF government came to power in 2016, seven Maoists have been gunned down in the state.
However, even the Communist Party of India, the second largest partner in the ruling Left front, has criticised the gunning down of suspected Maoists.
In a status report, the CPI leadership has said that its initial assessment after paying a visit to the Agali forest is that it was a fake encounter.
(With inputs from PTI)
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