High time to consider why society is celebrating deaths of accused: Ujjwal Nikam on Telangana encounter

Expressing "happiness" over the "death" of four accused in rape and murder of a veterinary doctor in Telangana, senior lawyer Ujjawal Nikam on Friday said that it is high time to consider as to why the society is celebrating their death.

Speaking to ANI, Nikam said, "Being a student of law I must say that this is the high time to consider why society is celebrating today...the happiness over their death. People want justice must be done immediately on such a person who has committed the crime."

The senior lawyer, however, also asked that it should be considered if the police were justified in opening the fire.

"At the same time we have to consider that whether the police were justified in opening the fire at four accused person when they were just trying to run away from the place of the incident... whether the contention of the police personnel that the accused tried to snatch their weapons and whether that would be the ground to open the fire," he said.

Nikam said he was conscious of the fact that the self-defence is a good defence to kill the other person, but cautioned that the self-defence has also certain limitations.

"Now, the judicial enquiry will find out the truth as to whether the police were justified in opening the fire or not. At the same time, with the incident of Hyderabad, we all would like to have an introspection of ourselves that how the criminal justice system can be more improved," he said.

Detailing the sequence of events that led to the encounter of all the four accused in the brutal gang-rape and murder case of woman veterinary doctor, Cyberabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar said that the accused were killed in a "retaliatory" action by the cops after they started attacking the police with stones, sticks, and other materials while they also snatched the weapons of two police personnel and opened fire on them.

"Today, the police took the accused to the crime spot as a part of the investigation. All the four accused got together and they started attacking the police party with stones, sticks, and other materials and also snatched away weapons from two of our officers and started firing," said Sajjanar at a press conference.

According to the Commissioner of Police (CP), the police officials maintained restraint and asked them to surrender but the accused continued firing on the police, after which the police fired in retaliation killing the accused.