Naxals have alleged that the encounter carried out by the police at Ammadlu village in the district on Tuesday was fake.

“Gautam, who was killed in the encounter, was a member of our Malnad Regional Committee. The others were poor tribals. All pro-people people were treating our teams well,” a statement attributed to Gangadhar of CPI (Maoist) said.

It is said the naxals have indirectly acknowledged the four deceased were their supporters.

The anti-Naxal squad purposefully fired at all corners of the house. It killed the house owners in order to drive out the “fighters”. It was “not an encounter”, he claimed.

Condemning the incident, the organisation demanded the arrest of police officials responsible for the encounter. Murder cases should be filed against them, it said.

‘Comrade Gautam’, hailing from a poor family of Turuvinhal in Sindhanur taluk, Raichur district was a committee member since 2005. He fought for the good of the people till his last breath, the statement said, adding that Ramegowdlu, Kaveramma and Sundaresh were simple folks, the statement said.

The organisation also called upon pro-people and human rights’ organisations to conduct a separate probe and tell the people the truth.

Further, the organisation warned that politicians like Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, Deputy CM B S Yediyurappa, Home Minister M P Prakash, officials like Shankar Bidari, A M Prasad and Vipul Kumar would learn lessons from the people and pay a price for their crimes.

Cremated
Meanwhile, the cremation of the four tribals killed in encounter with the police took place at Galigudda near Menasinahadya on Thursday.

The body of Gautam was still lying at the mortuary of Chikmagalur district hospital till Thursday.

More than 200 people from Ammadlu and surrounding villages took part in the cremation.

Prashanth, son of Ramegowdlu and Kaveramma, who has been missing since Tuesday, did not attend the funeral.