In a related development, the Madras High Court refused to order a second postmortem on the bodies of six victims from Thiruvannamalai district which have been asked to be preserved till April 17.
Political sparring continued on either side of the border with parties in Tamil Nadu demanding an inquiry and holding protests while Andhra Pradesh maintained that the state police operation was one of "smugglers versus law" and asked parties not to act under political compulsions.
"It was a cold-blooded murder of 20 poor labourers from Tamil Nadu," alleged the petitioner who sought directions for registration of an FIR under IPC Section 302 (murder) against the policemen involved in the operation besides seeking a CBI probe.
The petitioner's counsel V Raghunath said the High Court, after going through the two FIRs, felt unhappy and sought to know from the government whether or not a case of unnatural death was registered and asked how could police file a case against the dead persons.
"How could local police conduct investigation?" the court asked, according to Raghunath.
Additional Advocate General (AAG) D Srinivas said the court sought to know if AP police registered a case of unatural death in the case.
He submitted before the court that a magisterial inquiry is underway into the April 7 operation as per guidelines of the Supreme Court.