Allahabad encounter; Maya order CID probe

Lucknow, Aug 15: Taking serious note of the fake encounter episode in Allahabad last year, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati today ordered a CB-CID probe to nail down the guilty policemen involved in the heinous crime.

State Director General of Police (DGP) Vikram Singh said here the Chief Minister has ordered the CB-CID probe and has directed the investigating agency to submit their report within 30 days.

''Government has taken the issue very seriously and the guilty policemen and officials would not be spared," Mr Singh said.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has also taken the matter seriously and will send a notice to the state government on the issue very soon.

The government has also sought the original video footage of the crime shown by different private news channel since last night.

The controversial video shown by the channels describes how a criminal Pintu Mishra was shot dead by the policemen at Civil lines in Allahabad on September 19, 2006 even after the criminal surrendered before them.

Three criminals hailing from Varanasi, Jitendra Mishra, Vinay and Pintu Mishra had come to Allahabad to kill another criminal Sujit Pandey, lodged in the Naini central jail.

On a tip off, the civil lines police tried to arrest them near the bus station but the criminal attacked the police party and in the ensuing encounter a constable Ashok Pandey and criminal Jitendra were killed.

Pintu and Vinay fled away from the scene but later Pintu was cornered by the police and the fake encounter took place.

However, Vinay was still at large.

At the time of the incident Rahul Srivastava was the Circle Officer (CO) of Civil Lines police station while Akhilesh Melhotra was the DIG(Allahabad range) and Subrat Tripathi was IG (Allahabad Zone).

UNI