Constitute Commission of Enquiry into encounter killings-CPI

New Delhi, May 6 (UNI) The CPI today demanded that the Manmohan Singh government constitute a Commission of Inquiry to probe all fake encounters in the country and said ''ours is a law based society where all legal procedures must be adhered to.'' ''The very word encounter implies something which is extra judcial, unconstitutional and illegal,'' CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan said adding that the Rule of Law would have to be established and the judicial system be toned up to expedite the trials of the people concerned.

He said it is true that the police force and the security forces have to ''fight against the terrorists, dacoits and Naxalites, but they can not be bumped off without proper investigation and trial.'' At a press conference, Mr Bardhan, the veteran Communist and freedom fighter, while releasing four party publications, said the newspapers are nowadays full of stories relating to ''encounter killing'' in Gujarat and the arrest of three IPS officers in this regard.

Mr Bardhan's comments came in the backdrop of the Gujarat government having asked the IPS officer Geetha Johri to investigate into the Soharbuddin murder case. She is a Gujarat CID senior official who exposed the staged encounter. It was on the basis of her report that the IPS officers were arrested.

The CPI leader, who was accompanied by Party National Secretary D Raja, maintained the police or the security officials should first apprehend the person concerned and book him in a court of law for a fair trial so that they are not branded as ''gang of killers.'' Mr Bardhan later told UNI that first the CBI would have to probe all the fake encounters that have taken place in the country. ''The media has been full of all these kinds of stories from time to time,'' he said adding that it is good that the CID had started inquiring into the ''Gujarat encounter killings.'' UNI